The Planets
by Quagga
Summary: Four years after the end of the series: During a time of war, Winry gets a strange, desperate visitor in the night. AU, RoyxWinry, contains spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FMA or its characters. Also, this story is solely based on the first anime.

**Warning**: Severe angst, character death, pretentiousness, and generally, a whole lot of Roy torture lies ahead. Because he's cute when he angsts.

Here goes nothing.

**Chapter One: Mars, Bringer of War**

About an hour after midnight, the distant noises of gunfire and explosions in the East finally ceased. Winry Rockbell, the moment the night fell silent once again, felt relief – and continued on with her work on the wiring for an automail left leg, forcing her eyes to remain open as her fingers performed a delicate and yet almost subconscious task.

It was the third all-nighter this week, in response to another order from the East. Winry didn't have to be on the fronts to get an idea of what was going on out there – men were being blown to pieces and the military was so desperate to keep them in action that they were going to all lengths to get them "replacement" parts. The doctor's blood flowing through Winry's veins forced her to write stern warnings on every outgoing shipment; the surgery came with a _strongly_ recommended six month recovery and rehabilitation period, the risk of infection in the port was high if they immediately attempted to use the limb, and aside from that automail wasn't _really_ intended for exposure to open warfare, anyway.

There was a blonde boy, with fierce, burning amber eyes that had always disregarded that point. She had evidence, anyway, that he'd purposefully used his own automail _arm_ as a weapon – but there were Elrics, and then there were normal men. Winry had the feeling that her warnings were largely ignored, but the orders kept coming, and the cash continued to flow into her bank account.

There was always a flip side to being a doctor, or automail mechanic – on one hand, years and years of training were required to become a master at either trade, but on the other, the job depended on the misery of others. Winry could have been pleased about the new source of income, but when she imagined the parades of young soldiers with bloody stumps for limbs, the money made her feel sick to her stomach. Rockbell Automail, even with the passing of Grandma three years ago, still had the reputation of being among the best in the world – lightweight, durable, a combination of finesse and power – and she was a master at the trade, but the Automail she made now was not the finely crafted work afforded during times of peace. It was almost as bad as the mass-produced brands that came out of the factories in central – with no time, and with the pressure of the State Military breathing down her neck, Winry had just enough energy and skill to make it usable.

Deep down, though, part of her enjoyed the challenge every time a new order arrived via mail or messenger (as long as she did not think of the morbid reasons behind it). Another part of her knew that her Grandma was probably rolling in her grave every time she, in a hurry, left out a screw or misplaced wiring. It happened too often these days, when in all her early years, it had only happened once.

Thinking of that crucial first mistake always led her to thoughts of Him – and those burning eyes, so crucial a part of her memory and childhood that there was hardly a day that passed without seeing them in her mind's eye. Winry missed the Elrics. She always would – this time, though, she was not waiting for them to return. It had been three years since Ed had fled the Military and Al had gone with them, and the two had last been seen heading into the North, towards Drachma. They had been part of her life for so long, but now the Elrics were gone from Amestris, and probably gone forever.

She wandered if it was a coincidence that, a year after their disappearance, Drachma formed an alliance with Creta and several other nations surrounding Amestris and began the most aggressive military maneuver ever seen in the entire history of the continent.

She could see why Ed and Al had fled this country. Amestris was like a ship going down. The Fuhrer had been deposed, and the Prime Minister Hawkins had crumbled under the weight of negotiations and had practically allowed Amestris's political enemies an open shot at his back. The Military was all that really stood between complete occupation of the nation and the thin grasp on freedom they had, but if Winry's massive work orders were any clue, they were swiftly running through young soldiers and they, too, would fail.

The only thing holding the Military together, in fact, were the State Alchemists and the Officers of the Eastern Command Center. She'd heard that bit of information many times, but it failed to reassure her. Alchemists were a strange breed, and the State Alchemists were stranger than the rest, or so she was told. Ed had denounced them as a species – dogs who sold their freedom to the military in exchange for research, ways to further imbed themselves into their obsession. There was a long history of State Alchemists doing horrible things under the military rule, and she remembered being chilled by Ed's expression when he'd laughed and said that he was no better than the rest.

She didn't know what had precipitated Ed and Al's decision to flee the country. Winry, when it came down to it, hardly ever knew anything. But she was smart enough to figure out that if the fate of the world was to be decided, it was the Alchemists who would have the final say. By their hands, both horror and wonderment could be created.

Ed and Al were proof enough of that.

The rain and thunder outside interrupted her thoughts – the night had gone from one sour extreme to another. In place of the explosions the thunder growled viciously, and with each forking bolt of lightning the power in her small study flickered. Rockbell Automail was in a quiet, abandoned corner of the world, here in tiny Resembool… And yet, with war raging in the East, and the nearest neighbors five miles up the road, Winry couldn't help but feel a prickle of unease as the night intensified.

What if the soldiers in the East had _lost_? What if the Drachmans were on their way, preparing to burn and destroy the very heart of Amestris. Resembool, as small and homely as it was, would not be spared.

With no one in the house – not even Den, who had died the last spring – Winry found it was easy for her imagination to get the best of her. She momentarily swore she could hear a banging noise originating from the front door in the entry way before.

She ignored it at first, but soon it became loud, and insistent – Winry froze. The police, perhaps? A patient? Winry rose to her feet slowly, and clutching a wrench in one hand, she moved down the stairs.

It was unwise to answer the door, she knew – but if the person on her porch really was going to slaughter her upon sight, what would a flimsy wooden door do to stop them? Winry put her hand to the door knob, hesitated briefly, and yanked it open.

At first, she saw nothing in the pouring rain except the dim outline of the path leading up to the house and the railing on the front porch. After a few seconds allowed her eyes to adjust, though, a dark figure seemed to materialize out of the night, standing at the edge of the porch. Winry remained in the doorway, peeking out and clutching her wrench.

"Sir? Do you need some help?"

The figure was recognizably human, and recognizably male. He was a soldier – she now saw the blue of the uniform. His was unbuttoned, revealing a white undershirt, and that, too, was open, to reveal more white underneath – it looked like a bandage, wrapped across his chest. There was nothing else discernible about his appearance.

"Sir?"

"I need…" He began in a hoarse croak, paused, swallowed, and continued. "I need an arm…" He finally choked out, and said nothing more.

She now saw it – and even though it was practically familiar by now – she still felt nauseated at the sight of the sleeve dangling emptily at his side.

"When did it happen?"

"…Tonight."

Winry froze, feeling sick to her stomach. "How?"

He did not answer – that was all right – sometimes, they never did.

"Come in and let me take a look at you, Sir. Has the bleeding stopped?"

"Yes… It's been several hours…" He sounded dazed.

/And he might be going into shock/ her mind added.

"Okay. Come on – you need to lie down, and the area probably needs to be cleaned…" That was the Doctor in her speaking – Winry was calm, when not many automail mechanics would have been. She was equipped to deal with the medical hardships of an amputated limb as well, even though it had been years since she had done so.

Eight years, to be exact. Ever since the night two foolish young boys had tried to bring their mother back to life.

Oddly, the soldier did not move from his place on the bottom step, and Winry's heart suddenly and unexpectedly broke for him. He looked lost and wounded, standing hunched in the rain and clutching his brutalized right side, head down and uniform soaked. Winry stepped further out into the night, towards where he stood.

"…You don't have to help me if you don't want," He uttered, finally.

"Of course I'll help you. You think I'd turn you away, after you came all the way here?"

/And from hell, no doubt/

She spoke as she stepped towards him, and in the dim porch light, the pieces came together abruptly. Suddenly nauseous, Winry Rockbell stared at the man. Now she knew why he was hesitating.

He'd hesitated on Gracia Hughes doorstep, too, what seemed like a very long time ago, when they both played different people. Winry was a grieving, distressed seventeen-year-old girl eternally caught in a waiting game, and he had been a tense, determined soldier with a flat expression, a thin, unsmiling line for a mouth, and _terribly_ burning dark eyes. Now Winry was twenty-one and had given up waiting, and _he_ was pale and disconsolate, standing and staring at the ground unseeingly. The war had latched onto him like a parasite and sucked him dry – he was no longer handsome, but instead, almost _ghastly_ in the dark of the night. All the life and vigor seemed to have gone out of him, leaving a shell in its place.

But that was not _really_ on Winry's mind, or among her concerns. Instead she only looked at him, appalled, unable to believe that the man who had committed such a grievous sin against this household now stood on her porch, pleading by appearance – if not by words – for help that Winry did not know if she was willing or able to give.

Finally, though, it was the thought of Ed and Al that motivated her to move. She thought of events so long ago, of Al arriving with a bloodied, shivering Ed in his arms, pleading for his brother's life even though his own body was a hulking suit of metal instead of a little boy with a body of flesh and blood. Winry stepped forth, coming out onto the porch, and reached towards him.

"You're going to get sick standing out in the rain like that."

He raised his head slightly, and with what looked like sheer force of will he took a step forward and stopped, looking at her again briefly before lowering his gaze to the floor. She saw that only one of his eyes remained – the other was covered by a black patch, which veiled most of the left side of his face as well. After a few more minutes of hesitation, he finally moved into the house, shivering piteously and limping into the light of her living room. Twice, his entire body wavered as if he was going to faint, but before Winry could move forth he straightened, and continued towards the couch.

He never made it. Halfway across the room, in the light that made him look even more wraithlike, he dropped to his knees, clutching his side with a heavily bandaged hand and breathing in hoarse, sickly gasps. Winry stared at him in silence, nearly succumbing to a moment of numb panic. He sat on his knees, head drooping and entire body shaking. Everything else about the night – the rain, the thunder, the explosions in the east – had fallen eerily silent, except his tortured breathing.

Finally snapping out of what felt like a daze, Winry moved around him slowly, coming to stand above the man and studying his pale, flushed features. After a moment, he gasped out, "You shouldn't help me."

Was she mistaken, or did that sound like an order? Feeling as if she were moving through a cloud, Winry left him sitting in the middle of her living room and began gathering towels and bandages, unable to shake the pervasive image of the single soldier standing in the rain and clutching where his arm had once been. It reminded her of Al and Ed in many ways, on that _other_ night, and made just as little sense. She hadn't even known that the two Elrics were back from training; tonight, it seemed almost impossible that the Great Flame Alchemist, Roy Mustang, could have shown up here in such a poor state.

Winry returned, dropped the bandages to the floor, and started laying the blankets out along the couch. When she was done, she turned to the man, and, moving around behind him, decided it was her turn to give the orders. "I'm going to try to lift you up and get you on the couch. Just go along with this, okay?"

He did – barely. Her arm wrapped about his lower abdomen as she knelt, and he attempted to rise to his feet, leaning upon her heavily. She pulled his remaining arm over her shoulders, and nearly gasped when she saw blood immediately begin to spread on the bandage, seeping out of the empty socket where his arm had once been far more swiftly than she could have expected. Regardless of how old the wound was or how it had been obtained, the efforts of getting him on his feet had caused it to bleed again. He was lucky he hadn't bled to death…

…Not that he wasn't perilously near to doing so at this very moment. It didn't take long for Winry to figure out that he was literally soaked in blood, all over – and it just wasn't possible for all of it to be his own. By the time she rolled him around to the couch, she too had blood all down the front of her shirt and along her side. Her fingers, working feverishly, began to unwrap the bandage about his side. When the blood-stained fabric peeled away and revealed the raw, gaping wound where his arm had once been, she nearly vomited – her stomach churned in disgust, as he continued to shiver.

What the man needed was a real hospital, but it was too late for that – he would either survive here, or die in this house. Winry didn't know whether it was just odd or ironic – his life was literally in her hands.

Within the next quarter of an hour, she somehow managed to stem the flow of blood and get him bandaged, but he was still a somewhat awe-inspiring and terrifying sight, all at once. There were other gaping injuries all over his body, yet none so aggressive as a missing arm. His hair was dried and matted with old blood – older, anyway – and his neck had a bloodstained bandage wrapped around it. His stomach and chest were covered in mostly superficial slashes, and from the knees down his blue pant legs were in tatters.

Despite his wounds, and blood loss, he was still conscious enough to open his muddy dark eye and peer at her, shivering from the cold and wet of his uniform.

"…What'll it cost to have the arm as soon as possible?"

She stared at him for a moment, before scowling. "You're in _no_ shape to take automail right now. It needs at least a month of healing…"

"…Ideally, yes… but I don't have a month," He replied, his voice low and uneven. "…A week. A week for this to heal… A week to heal after the operation… What'll it be?"

"…You've got to be kidding me," Winry proclaimed. "…There's no way I'm going to perform the operation a _week_ from now. You'd probably bleed to death… And the risk of infection would be--"

"…I don't care. I only have two weeks."

"There's a good chance that you'd _die_ during the operation." She stated, flatly.

"…Then I'll take it," He rasped, his voice coming out twice as hoarse as before. "…I have two weeks. I'm not going to argue with you…"

"And if I refuse?" She asked, slightly amazed by his audacity, and his utter _disregard_ for his own wellbeing.

"I'll go find a lesser skilled mechanic who won't…" He muttered. She reached forth and put her fingers to his forehead – finally – and found, among dried blood and thin cuts, a raging fever. He hardly noticed her touch.

Just as she suspected, he was unconscious within minutes, slipping away into a deep state of stillness that might have been sleep, might have been coma, and, even more convincingly, might have been death… If not for the ragged, painful way that his chest continued to rise and fall. Winry Rockbell didn't honestly expect him to live through the night.

But it wasn't a question of whether or not he was going to die, because that was impossible to predict.

Instead, she questioned whether or not she cared, and found that when she looked at him, she saw Edward Elric in her mind's eye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**: **Venus, Bringer of Peace**

"Maes…"

Someone said, and Winry blinked away sleep, realizing that she had fallen into an unusual position – slumped across the kitchen table, an automail foot jammed against her face and arms dangling off the sides. With a yawn, she straightened and looked towards the living room of the house.

It was morning. The storms of the night before were past, leaving sunlight streaming in through her windows, replete with blue skies and puffy clouds outside hovering over the now peaceful farm lands of Resembool. It was a distant stretch from the fury of the night before, although Winry couldn't be sure whether it was an improvement or not.

"…Maes…"

The voice again – a soft, strained whisper – would have been indiscernible, if not for the silence of the house in the early morning. Curious and filled with a kind of dread, Winry rose to her feet, stretched, and lightly tip-toed into the living room...

The Flame Alchemist was still alive -- his fevered, nightmarish sleep-talking confirmed it. Winry wanted to be callous, and say that it didn't matter whether or not he died or lived – but, on the same token, his state was so pathetically _desperate_ that she couldn't help but feel guilty for having such thoughts. She was going to be like her parents – impartial, treating him regardless of whether he was friend or foe. Of course, she reasoned, _that_ had been the precise reason why they had been killed.

Still… Thinking of those matters now was just leading her in circles. Winry knew there was nothing she could do about it – he was unconscious and in a horrible shape, and she knew she wasn't cruel enough to simply grab him and toss him out of the house.

"Maes… I… I'm…"

Every muscle in his body was tense and strained, and his face was drawn up in a tight, painful grimace beneath the dried blood. By morning, he looked even more ghoulish – only traces of his former good looks remained, and everything else was pale, wasted, and almost _desperately_ thin.

He jerked his head back and forth, and shivered mightily, before letting out another delirious string of words.

"…I'm… I'm sorry… I never meant… No… No… Please, _no_…" His voice was hoarse and pleading, something Winry never thought she'd hear from a man who seemed as proud as the Flame Alchemist. With a sigh, and not really knowing what else to do, Winry moved to the pan of water resting near to his couch, dipped a cloth in it, and began cleansing his face of the dried blood. He, caught up in his nightmares, paid her no heed.

Blood flaked away from his cheeks and forehead, but his eye-patch presented a problem. Large, black, and almost gaudy, it, too, was dirty and half-plastered to his face from the blood. Cautiously, and knowing she was probably straying into forbidden territory, Winry eased the eye-patch away from his face, brushing his hair back as she did. To her credit, she did not recoil – even if it was shocking, to see a man who had once seen so elegantly handsome burdened by scars like _these_.

His eyelid was probably permanently shut, and paralyzed, given its appearance. Across the lid, and stretching from his high cheekbone to his hairline, was a brutal scar, red and livid around the edges. There were other smaller scars hidden under the patch, too, pitting once perfectly smooth skin and giving his face an almost _impressively_ marred appearance. Winry shuddered slightly, before lightly dabbing the blood away from his hairline and cleansing the area as delicately as possible. The entire time he, thankfully, remained in his half-conscious fever state, tense and yet completely unaware.

When she was done, she lightly toweled his face and replaced the eye-patch. He shuddered slightly, and presented the silent morning with more of whatever was treading through his fever-tortured mind.

"…No… no, Maes, no… Come back…"

Maes.

Winry knew _exactly_ who must have been haunting his dreams, and it filled her with an even more pronounced feeling of dread. Her mind was jumping to several conclusions, but she pointedly ignored the flow of her thoughts and instead focused on tending to him. He was getting sicker… His fever worsening and his face even more pallid.

Roy Mustang had survived the night, but she suddenly doubted that he was going to be able to survive the day, too. It would have been easy to leave him here, and not worry about it… But no. She saw the pain on his features, and realized that she was simply too cursedly compassionate to let a fellow human – as detestable as they were – die in a manner like this.

_Nothing's easy, is it?_

It would have been easier if the same strange phenomena wouldn't keep reoccurring – she looked at him, and in her mind's eye, saw _Ed_. The two men looked nothing alike, and didn't _act_ alike, either, but here Roy Mustang was, severed limbs, feverish dreams and all, pleading for forgiveness from someone who must have been like a brother -- yet another unconscious, wounded alchemist taking refuge in the Rockbell home.

By mid-afternoon, Winry's automail works – still not abandoned, because she knew very well that it would be foolish to miss completing an order for any reason – were relocated to a table in the living room, while Mustang continued to struggle through fever and delirium. She sat at the table, threading wires through an automail foot, concentrating only half-heartedly on the job at hand and instead focusing more on Mustang.

His uniform answered a few questions. It took her some consideration, but the new bars and stripes meant that he was now a General, which made his appearance here even more bizarre. Why he had chosen to simply _abandon_ the army and come here, to Resembool, was beyond her. Perhaps, she realized, he was on the run.

_Yet_ another _similarity. Ed came here when he was on the run, once, too, didn't he? _

Winry frowned, but only to herself. She was going to have to stop drawing parallels between _this_ man and Edward – it was hopeless, and a little sad, especially when she knew it only reflected her wishful thinking that, one day, the Elrics would return. The Alchemist lying on her couch was the _wrong_ one, but _that_ was equally pathetic to think about. And there were other topics she was not even going to breach…

_I'm helping him because he's a paying customer. I can't refuse him just because…_

She didn't want to think about it.

_I don't know why he came here, or where he came from, or why no one is with him, or **why** he lost an arm in the first place_…

She did _not _want to think about it.

If he had just come from the battle field, perhaps a shell blast or explosion had done it, but then… Automail was something invented by alchemists, and had traditionally been used to replace limbs lost via what they called "equivalent exchange." Winry didn't think Roy Mustang was foolish enough to attempt…

"Maes…" He murmured, and rolled half on his left side, his face flushed and his entire body desperately tense. Winry stared at him for a moment, before returning to the automail wiring.

He groaned one last time, the noise desperate almost to the point of obscenity, before muttering, "I understand now…"

…And he fell silent. She watched as he slowly relaxed, muscles losing their tension and, as minutes ticked by, the sickly flush disappeared from his face.

Winry rose from her automail project and moved to his side, tentatively placing her hand over his forehead. As she suspected, his fever had lessened somewhat – it still burned away, yes, but he no longer felt like an oven handle to her bare hand. An awfully quick recovery, she surmised – as uncanny as it seemed, it was almost like he was consciously fighting against his own sickness in a desperate attempt to stick to his own rigorous deadline.

_Two weeks._

Winry didn't care. There was no way in hell she was going to attach automail to this man in that amount of time, no matter _how_ desperate he was.

Afternoon faded into evening, and evening stretched onwards until Winry jerked upright, realizing she'd fallen asleep – this time slouched across the table in the living room with her arms thrown on top a bundle of tangled wiring. Realizing she must have fallen asleep before sundown, she rose with a piteously melodramatic sigh and slouched over to the lamp.

In a moment, the room filled with an incandescent, warming glow, casting both current residents of the Rockbell house in shades of yellow. Turning, Winry decided that the gentle glow made _His_ face look healthier than before – giving him color and making some of the lines of exhaustion disappear. Perhaps it was just the light – and, perhaps, he was starting to improve already?

Winry lightly tip-toed over to his couch, and studied his face. The expression of anguish he'd worn all day was gone, in favor of absolute blankness. Winry tentatively slid her palm across his forehead again, quickly checking to see if his skin still burned. Surprising her, it was cool and only slightly damp from sweat…

She suddenly drew her hand back, thinking in an irrational moment that his sudden coolness meant...

…No. It couldn't… Although he had been _very_ still for the last few minutes…

"You'd better not be dead," Winry snapped, more panicked than she would have cared to admit, as she grabbed his wrist and felt for his pulse. To her surprise, it was strong and unwavering. He was not dead – on the contrary, it seemed as if the Flame Alchemist was slowly and steadily improving. It was a good thing, she supposed. The sooner he awoke, the sooner – she told herself – she could reclaim her couch, attach him with automail, and get him out of the house.

Winry sighed, and, tossing another blanket over his sleeping form, turned to head back into her kitchen. Briefly stepping out, she lit the torch and grabbed the morning paper, which had been lying forgotten all day. Winry tossed the paper on the counter, and set to work making dinner. It was a quick chore – she yanked some items from the ice box, boiled some water, and tossed together something that, hopefully, would come to resemble a soup after simmering for a while. She didn't notice the headline plastered across the top of the paper until she crossed the kitchen towards the sink, and cast an idle glance in the direction of the table. When she did notice, though, she stopped immediately and rushed to the table.

"_Major General Roy Mustang MIA and presumed Dead_," the headline proclaimed, and below it was a subtitle. "_Hopes for Victory in the East Wane as News Reaches Central.._."

Winry scanned over the article, trying to find _answers_ and yet only finding more questions. The article stated that he had last been seen nearly four days ago around the Eastern City of Quartz (twenty miles East of Resembool, Winry realized). It made no mention of the fact that he was missing an arm, although she skimmed down to the last paragraph and felt her stomach abruptly lurch in shock.

"_Mustang's disappearance occurred shortly after the death of his trusted aide and second-in-command, Major Riza Hawkeye."_

Where she not so utterly _shocked_ Winry might have cried. She didn't know Hawkeye well, but she remembered the woman being determined, reserved, and matter-of-fact, solely devoted to Roy Mustang and sworn to protect the man with whatever strength she had. But this…? Winry stood silently, eyes wide and clutching the paper with shaking hands. There were no details given about Hawkeye's death, but there was the ominous suggestion that Hawkeye's death had something to do with the state that the Major General was in now.

Winry knew little about Roy Mustang, but she had formed the opinion that, despite his many indiscretions and his arrogant façade, he did take it upon himself to protect those around him. There was only one who truly protected _him _in return – Riza Hawkeye.

And now she was dead, and he was lying unconscious on a couch in the home of the two doctors who he had murdered. Feeling as if someone had knocked the wind out of her, Winry stumbled into the other room, going towards Mustang's couch and staring at him, the paper still in her hand. She wanted him to wake up. She wanted an explanation. She wanted _something, _a denial, a reassurance, a sign, _something_ that might have dispelled all the doubts and fears racing through her head. Perhaps he would say that Riza Hawkeye was still alive, or that Winry was simply jumping to the wrong conclusions by thinking that _Alchemy_ might very well have had something to do with his missing right arm… But he was still unconscious and uncomprehending, quietly slumped under mounds of covers...

He no words to offer Winry, who turned and stumbled away towards her ground-floor bedroom and sat on the bed, still holding the paper. Dinner and automail work orders were forgotten. Instead, all she could think about was Mustang, and Hawkeye, and the war, and how it now seemed to have crept onto her doorstep and collapsed in her living room without her ever wanting to be involved. She would have rather remained blissfully ignorant, and continued on with her business – making automail, not thinking that for each limb she made, one soldier or fighter had been mutilated and irrevocably scarred.

_I should lie down,_ Winry concluded, after a moment of silence, as she sat on the edge of the bed. _I don't want to think about this. I don't want to think about…_

Apparently, the temporary lapse in Mustang's fever state was now a thing of the past – she could hear him in the other room again. This time, his delirious pleas contained a new name.

"Maes… Hawkeye… ev'ry one… I'm so sorry…"

Winry pulled a pillow over her head and attempted to block it out, trying to do anything but pity him.

Morning came, and with it, Winry rose to find that Roy Mustang was still on her couch – only this time, he was wide awake and looking at the ceiling with a haunted expression on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**: **Neptune, the Mystic**

Winry froze instantly.

She supposed this was a good sign; he was conscious, staring at the ceiling with one hollow eye and still breathing. Nonetheless, the mere thought of approaching him slammed her mind into a blank wall. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do.

And of course, she realized that she was being ridiculous because he was _just another patient_.

Slowly, Winry approached, carefully controlling her steps so as not to make any unnecessary noise. Too late – he blinked, and turned his head towards her with some effort.

For a moment, the two simply regarded one another. He was still and sprawled across the couch, turned towards her with a pillow supporting his head and shoulders. His expression was mostly unreadable – and dazed, that aside, revealing that the festering illness inside of him had not yet abated.

Finally, Winry decided to speak, cognizant of the fact that the awkward silence between them was starting to intensify.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, a neutral question with an obvious answer. Just by looking at his pasty skin and his gaunt features, it was plain to see that he had not recovered much since his collapse, two nights before.

It took him a long time to reply. At first, he stared at her as if she was speaking tongues or gibberish; then some of the confusion faded, and he gave her a look that was cool and assessing.

"…Is Fullmetal here?" He asked.

"You didn't answer my question," Winry said, flatly.

The look he gave her was, she decided, almost _condescending_. How he could even _manage_ such an expression when he was lying on her couch, wrapped in bandages, and missing an _arm_ was utterly beyond Winry, but, nonetheless, the look was unmistakable.

"How do you think I feel?" He said, hoarsely. "…It should be obvious. Now--"

"Well, it should be obvious to _you_ that _Ed _isn't here," Winry replied, in the most scathing tone she could manage. "You would have heard him by now. Why _would_ he be here? No one's seen him for five years!"

Instead of looking insulted, a vague, hazy look of confusion to returned to his features, and he looked towards the ceiling again, brow furrowed as he deciphered her words. They should have been plain enough, but the amount of consideration he gave them made Winry wonder if she really was speaking in tongues.

"…I thought he'd be here," Mustang concluded, after another long silence.

"Don't know where you got that idea from," Winry replied, now gaining a little courage and stepping closer to him. "Let me take a look at your bandages. I probably need to change them."

He watched her move towards him, for a moment, before frowning and turning back towards the ceiling.

"You haven't heard anything from Edward?" He asked, and Winry scowled. Here they were, back on square one again.

"…No. I haven't. Not a thing. I haven't seen or heard from him for five years. Have you? Do you know something I don't?"

"No… never mind, then." He said, closing his eye and, if it was entirely possible, managing to look condescending and superior even with his eye patch, his bandages, and the multiple wounds scarring his gaunt frame. Maybe it was just Winry's own personal bias, she surmised – she was _supposed_ to hate him, after all – but it seemed as if something about _him_ was mocking her. She glared at his expressionless features for a moment, before pushing aside his blanket and studying his right side.

His eye opened again, and he gave her a look that might have been mildly affronted, and might have just been surprised. Winry ignored him and lightly fingered the bandage; sure enough, the outside was stained with blood, although it wasn't quite as terrible as she expected. Either way, she needed another good look at the wound.

"Can you sit up?" She asked, doubtfully.

Probably not, his expression seemed to say, although he shrugged and slowly moved upwards, trying to use what little strength he had left in his left arm and the rest of his body to maneuver into a sitting position. Winry watched, biting her lip apprehensively, but he somehow managed to sit upright on the couch, panting slightly from what _normally_ would have been a mild exertion. Winry sighed, and moved onto the couch behind him. Picking up the scissors, she began to snip away the sodden layers of bandage, trying not to think about how much of his blood she was getting on her hands.

They were forcibly silent. He sat with obvious discomfort, which she guessed was both from exhaustion and his refusal to relax with her so close. Winry considered it, finding it odd that he seemed to trust her even less than she trusted him. He leaned almost uncomfortably far away from her, and every muscle in his back was tense, as if he was on the verge of jerking away from her touch. For her part, she tried to come into contact with his bare skin as little as possible as she delicately peeled away bandages.

She'd suspected it two nights ago, but now her suspicions were confirmed; the wound, though still brutal and quite possibly infected, was somewhat further along in the healing process than what it should have been. It made no sense – just why would he lie?

"When did this happen, again?" Winry asked, tentatively.

"…I really don't remember."

Winry paused, frowning. "But I thought you said it happened on the night you came here?"

"…It was a long night."

He was answering vaguely, and being deceitful about it – and he was aware of it, too. But Winry didn't call him on it, because really, despite all the distant connections between their two lives, it _wasn't_ any of her business. Instead, she moved to another question which was probably even less likely to bring about a truthful answer.

"How did it happen?"

"…An explosion." He answered, blandly. "A shell blew up a few feet away from where I was."

_An explosion?_ Winry mentally questioned, but in hindsight, it _was_ a more likely explanation, wasn't it? He was a soldier, and he'd been in war. It was quite unfair of her to immediately jump to an even more morbid conclusion…

…And yet, Winry knew right away that he was lying. Once again, she said nothing.

It was none of her business. She didn't _care_. She didn't _want_ or _need_ to know. With Ed and Al, she was always stuck _wanting_ to know and yet knowing they wouldn't tell her, and with Mustang, she didn't even have a _reason_ for wanting to know.

_And now we're both lying, because I_ do _want to know what he did, whether I care or not. _

And there was an even greater question: did she really "not care" what happened to him?

Winry cleaned off the area around the wound, and realized that maybe she wasn't giving him enough credit. She knew that he was lying, and he was aware of it. The situation was growing awkward.

"Listen… you don't have to tell me." Winry said, finally.

He hung his head, and suddenly, Winry realized they'd come to a kind of mutual understanding, and the tense atmosphere in the room lessened almost drastically. Most noticeably, his shoulders relaxed and he moved back slightly, making it easier for her to wrap the fresh, clean bandages around his chest.

"I don't think you're going to be able to take automail a week from now," Winry started, after a moment, "unless you've got some kind of miracle healing ability, anyway. And you'd have to be insane to try to leave after only a week of recovery, even if I did go ahead and do it."

"So you're not going to do it?" He asked.

"…No. I'd be insane to try. You'd probably die."

"Is that a certainty?"

"Well, no… But even _Ed_ took nearly a month to recover, and he--"

"He lost his arm and leg. I only lost my arm. I don't have to learn how to walk again."

"True, but if I had my way, Ed would have spent at least six months--"

"Do you really want me here for that long?"

Good point, she thought, but she didn't let him have it. "You're a patient, and whatever opinions I might have about you don't matter." Winry said, blandly.

He had the nerve to smirk – she could see the expression as she leaned over and looped a bandage around his chest – but it wasn't mocking or bitter – on the contrary, she found it to be sad and defeated. He said nothing, and she decided to let the subject drop. It was no use arguing with a stubborn alchemist, anyway.

Finally, she finished with the dreaded task, and slid away from him as quickly as possible, stumbling back to her feet. He slumped back onto the couch, pulling the blanket up to his chest and looking towards the ceiling again. For a long while, the two were silent, until Winry decided it was unnerving simply standing here and staring at him.

"It feels like your fever went down. That was fast," Winry commented, trying to sound optimistic. He continued looking at the ceiling for a moment, before his single dark eye shifted in her direction.

They were awkwardly silent for a long moment. Winry obviously tried not to think about all the nasty things she could have said to him; he merely seemed to be struggling against a kind of sick haziness. Finally, he spoke.

"…You haven't heard anything from Fullmetal at all? Absolutely nothing?" Why did it seem that they were getting absolutely _nowhere_? Winry scowled at him.

"You mean _Ed?_ He's not a State Alchemist any more, is he?"

Mustang studied her. "What about--?"

"For the hundred-thousandth time, he's not here! And nor is Al!"

Thinking of Ed always made it much easier to hate Roy Mustang again – not just for being a coward who should have refused to follow orders, but for being the man who had drafted a _twelve_ year old Alchemist into the State Military, and who had manipulated and tricked the boy for his own personal gain. She fixed her face into a scowl, and mustered a cold and properly angry tone of voice.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?"

He shifted slightly, causing a few blankets to fall away and reveal the bandages wrapped over the stump where his right arm had once been. Winry almost recoiled – her concern for his condition suddenly made it _difficult_ to be cold towards him again, regardless of the past.

He grimaced in discomfort, before looking at her, expression fathomless.

"Do you honestly think…?" He began, as if to argue some point - but, before he came up with the rebuttal, something on his face changed, and he turned his gaze back towards the ceiling.

"What?" Winry asked, slightly irritated.

"Never mind," was his supremely unhelpful response, and he closed his eye once more, as if trying to block her out. Winry stared at him for a moment, before turning abruptly and heading towards the kitchen. Why she made an attempt to hide her exasperation, she did not know – Roy Mustang, no matter what he did, somehow managed to provoke her ire every time. Maybe she was being oversensitive.

…And maybe, she thought, her mind moving down that same sinister path once again, she was perfectly justified for being rude to the man that had murdered both of her –

Yet again, her mind redoubled upon itself – there was no use pondering such things. Instead, she tore open a recipe book, sending several pages fluttering, and slammed it down into the counter. Here was a good task to refocus her energy on; cooking a _meal_ for the pompous General lying in the other room.

After a quarter of an hour of abusing cooking utensils and fumbling with the stove, she returned with a bowl of stew in hand, moving over to sit in the chair besides his couch. He opened his one deeply lined eye, looked at her, looked at the bowl, and a faint hint of incredulity appeared on his face.

"I'm not hungry."

"If you're going to get automail in a week, you'd better eat up or you won't be healthy enough." Winry said, through gritted teeth.

"You don't need to feed me," Was his calm, measured response, as if he hadn't heard her.

"You've already interrupted my work order – twice! – and ruined my couch. What's a few vegetables and some broth gonna set me back?"

Immediately after, she realized that her words probably sounded almost exceptionally callous. Correcting herself, she quickly amended, "Besides. It doesn't look like you've been eating a lot lately, anyway. You've got to be hungry."

"I can feed myself, then." He insisted, evidentially hoping that she could ignore the fact that he was minus one arm and his other hand was heavily bandaged. Winry glared at him, before thrusting the fork into the soup bowl and spearing something that resembled a potato.

"I told you. I don't need--"

She interrupted whatever complaint he had with the fork, thoroughly shocking him by stuffing it in his open mouth. He stared at her for a moment, and something strange passed over his face – was it just her, or did it seem like a slightly jaded hint of amusement, nostalgia, even? – And he swallowed in a rather resolute manner as he laid, miserably propped up on pillows and covered in bandages.

Winry forced him through half the bowl, trying to resist the almost overwhelming temptation to dump the soup in his lap whenever he turned his head aside or tried to avoid the wrath of the fork. In the end, she stormed out of the room in a quiet huff, while he pointedly stared at the ceiling. She tossed the half-eaten soup bowl into the sink, and sat down heavily at the kitchen table, pulling a few automail parts towards her and beginning to thread wires.

A few minutes passed by, and once again, her eyes fell upon the now day-old newspaper resting on her kitchen table. She skimmed over the headline, and felt an immediate sinking feeling in her abdomen.

She'd tried not to think about it, not after last night – and he hadn't mentioned it, although the glazed, empty look in his eyes seemed to speak volumes. It almost went without saying: if Riza Hawkeye was still alive, Mustang would have never arrived here alone and in such a desperate shape. Winry rose to her feet and moved into the other room, unbidden, coming to stand over his couch once again. He paid her no heed.

"…How did she die?" Winry asked, before she could think better of it. His reaction was subtle and yet immediate – his eye shifted towards her and narrowed slightly, and what little color there was left in his face drained away abruptly.

When he answered, it was in a calm, measured tone of voice, although she could almost sense the pain beneath it. "We were ambushed while we were touring the area east of here… We were in one of the jeeps… It was the perfect opportunity for them, really… They were trying to take me out with their snipers. But she…"

He didn't finish, and he didn't need to, either. Winry could almost hear the gunshots and explosions, and in her mind, she envisioned Hawkeye, who had long ago pledged to protect the man now lying on Winry's couch, lunging in front of General Mustang and taking the rain of bullets meant for him. It might have sounded heroic – but it gave Winry chills, especially when she saw the look on Mustang's face as he stared at the ceiling.

_I wonder if she thought it was worth it, in the end…_ Winry thought, staring at him.

_I wonder if she even thought about it. Whether he is really worth lying down a life for…_

_Somehow, I doubt it. I bet she had already decided he was._ And that was more chilling than anything.

"…General." She said, after a moment, not knowing if there was any other appropriate way to address him. It got his attention, at least – he looked towards her with his hollow eye, seeming to actively dread what her words were going to be.

"…I'll need to take some measurements for your automail," She said. "so I can start working on it."

Her suddenly formal tone surprised him, although his eye narrowed. "Will it be ready in a week, then?"

"…Probably a few days, actually. It's just an arm. But I'm not operating on you until _I_ think it's safe. Do you understand?"

She expected an immediate protest out of him, and for that matter, it seemed like he was about to speak up, and quite angrily – but the expression on his face suddenly darkened, and he turned back towards the ceiling.

"I don't see why you care." He muttered.

"I don't. But I also know that you don't have any choice, anyway. You're MIA, aren't you? If you weren't running, you would be in a military hospital now instead of here."

He looked at her again, briefly, coldly, eye narrowed.

"You seem to know a lot more than you should." He murmured.

"It's on the front page of the paper," Winry snapped. "You're, ah… presumed dead. And you obviously haven't bothered correcting them on it, either. _I_ think that's pretty suspicious, but I guess you have your reasons, don't you? You're not going to tell me, of course, but I'm _sure_ you have your reasons."

Even for a man still struggling with injuries, blood loss, and festering illness, he managed to look both outrageously stubborn, and more than a little infuriated over the fact that he wasn't completely in control of the situation. It must have been a first, too, Winry mused, noting the growing frustration flashing across his already troubled expression.

_Don't worry_, she thought, _I feel the same way._

As she left the room, heading for the measuring tape, she had the unpleasant sensation that he was watching her. Sure enough, she turned, and he looked away quite swiftly, back towards the ceiling… Although this time, there was a tight look to his features that had not been there before. Winry lingered in the doorway for a moment, studying him. He ignored her. Finally, she worked up the nerve to speak again, pushing the usual accusatory tone out of her voice with some effort.

"General?" She asked, surprised by the fact that she had almost addressed him as 'Colonel', probably a byproduct of the many years of listening to Ed's ranting and raving.

He looked towards her again, his expression now carefully guarded.

"…Did you try to bring Lieutenant Hawkeye back through human transmutation?" She asked, her words coming out in a sudden rush. "Did you try to resurrect her? Is _that_ why you lost your arm?"

It was a rude, nosy, and perhaps downright cruel question to ask, especially considering his state. But to her surprise he only looked at her for what seemed like the longest time, before, finally, he turned away. After a moment of uncomfortable shuffling his back faced her, gaunt under the layers of blankets and tense with the pain ripping through the severed nerves of his right arm. There was no response – neither an affirmation, nor a denial, of Winry's words….

…It was what she expected. Leaving him to his own devices for the moment, Winry stumbled into the kitchen, giving him one last glance and noticing that he was trembling almost uncontrollably.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**: **Saturn, Bringer of Old Age **

_I can see why he wouldn't answer. It _was_ insensitive._

Her eyes followed the path of thick, brewing storm clouds as they moved in from the East, duly noting that this year's autumn seemed particularly fierce. Risembool was usually so peaceful and calm during the fall that it struck her as odd. Where she not as mechanically – and, for that matter, scientifically – inclined, she might have said that the storms only chose to sweep through the area whenever they needed to serve the purpose of washing up some unfortunate alchemist on her doorstep.

Normal children might have wished upon a star. Winry wished upon storms, hoping that they would one day blow in Edward and Alphonse Elric – only, this time, the two Elrics would be full in mind and body and with smiles on their faces instead of looks of terror.

But then, if Roy Mustang's appearance was indicative of anything, Winry swore that some deity out there was making utterly _half-assed_ attempts at mocking her. She shifted around on the porch steps and glanced into the house, before turning back to the coming storm with a sulky sigh. Her automail order was done now, leaving her with nothing to do – and he had fallen into some kind of uncooperative torpor, not even allowing her to take measurements. As far as she knew, he hadn't even bothered to move an inch since yesterday.

_Yesterday… Although I said he didn't have to tell me, I went and pried into his business anyway, didn't I? Really, I don't_ need _to know why he's missing his arm._

No, that was a blatant _lie_. Winry scowled up at the clouds, and finally admitted that she was nearly _itching_ to know every, single detail, whether he wanted to tell her or not. Part of it was still shock over Riza Hawkeye's death – even when Winry tried to rationalize her way out of believing that she was dead, the truth was presented plainly to her in the manner of Roy Mustang. He would _not_ be alone and suffering through the pain of a missing limb if Hawkeye was still alive. How deep the connection went – whether his missing arm and the reality of her death were _directly_ linked – was a mystery. But Winry _did_ want to know.

_She would be mad at him for trying something like this…_

The thought slowly rolled through Winry's mind, and she scowled, unwittingly using one of Ed's favorite phrases. "That _bastard_."

It sounded unnatural on her lips, but it applied to him in every way possible. Riza Hawkeye had _died_ for him, and it looked like he had made his level best attempt at making her sacrifice worth _nothing._

Winry slowly rose to her feet, anger overwhelming her as the wind gusts began to rattle the eaves of the house, and the storm prematurely darkened the early afternoon. Be _damned_ if she was not going to have a word with him about this – she was going to throw it back in his face and _make_ him confess. Winry turned and stormed into the living room once more, right up to his couch, and paused.

After three days of occupation, it was now empty. Winry stared, the thin hairs on the back of her neck beginning to prickle with unease. Where was he? She turned, looking around the living room. Where the _hell_ was he? A few moments later, a loud thump from another area in the house served as a homing signal, and she turned, storming towards the source of the sound.

_He shouldn't be up and moving around, the stupid…_

The bathroom door was open just a crack, and Winry came to a stop right in front of it. Never mind his apparent _male_-ness, he was a patient, and that loud noise sounded exactly like a body had just landed on a very unyielding wooden floor. Winry hesitated for a few seconds before pushing the door open. Luckily, the sight was nothing unclean for her eyes, even if it vaguely mortified her. He was on his knees, face drawn in a painful grimace and left hand clutching his right shoulder, entire body quaking and his face a foul mix of pallid gray and a feverish red. Winry, once again, could only stare – but this time the hesitation disappeared almost _too_ swiftly, and she dropped to her knees next to him within seconds.

"What happened?" No 'are you all right' this time. It was hideously obvious that he was not. For a long while, he didn't answer her – not out of stubbornness, but because he appeared to be on the verge of passing out. When he finally did answer, there was something in his voice she had never heard before: fear.

"…I looked in the mirror… And I saw my arm…" He gritted out, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. "And then it started hurting… my arm hurts like it's still…"

"Ah. Phantom pains," Winry explained. "It's fairly common. It'll be painful, but I wouldn't worry--" Even as she spoke, she reached towards his forehead, expecting him to be quite feverish again. Sure enough, he was, and it was more intense than even the night he had spent delirious. It explained the hallucination.

"Isn't there anything to make it stop?" He uttered, for once not even noticing her touch. "At first it was just itching, but now…"

"I can get you some painkillers," Winry said, trying to hide the fact that she really didn't _know_. With Ed, the phantom pains had plagued him during the week before his surgery almost continually, and nothing seemed to help. Mustang was faring no better – the shaking, the sweat strewn about his forehead, and the almost bruising grip he had on his own shoulder, right across the wound, made it clear enough that he was suffering. "But you've got to go lie down again. You'll be better off in bed instead of on the couch--"

"Did this happen to Fullmetal?" he asked, abruptly. Winry started, momentarily taken aback, before frowning.

"Yes. It did, just before his surgery. But after automail, he never said anything about it--"

Something odd passed over Mustang's face, before he grimaced again, bending slightly and looking as if he was very close to throwing up or passing out.

"Just try to relax," Winry said, in a small, belated tone of voice. For a man like _Mustang_, who never revealed anything, to be in this state, meant the pain had to be almost unbearable. Yet when he looked up at her for a moment and their gazes met, she was taken aback by the fact that the fire in his single eye was exactly the same as Ed's – fierce, feverish and direct, burning like the surface of the sun. But Ed's eyes were like looking into liquid fire, especially with their unreal golden hue, and Mustang's single eye was like the storm clouds currently bearing down upon Risembool – even the color was the same.

"…If an eleven year old can go through this and live… I can do the same." He muttered, his gaze lowering, and Winry was struck by the sudden self-contempt in his voice. "…And it wasn't just his arm… It was his _leg_, too…"

With that, Mustang rose shakily to his feet and Winry followed, her arms held out just in case he took another dive for the floor. He would have refused more noticeable help – the man was stubborn, and in his current mood, she almost assumed that he'd view it as an insult. But then, he was comparing himself to _Ed_, and that was something no healthy human in their right mind should have done. Edward Elric, with his utter disregard for his own physical wellbeing, was someone that only the insane would try to emulate.

But then, Winry mused, as she watched Mustang resolutely exit the bathroom and move back towards his couch, if there was one person who equaled Ed in terms of foolish pride, it was Roy Mustang. She followed him into the living room and watched him slump onto the couch, before throwing a blanket over him and leaving in search of painkillers. She found the strongest stuff she had – which, unfortunately, was still rather mild – and measured it out in a syringe. When she returned he was trying to relax and breathe slowly by pure force of will, an effort that was obviously not working. Spasmodically, the fingers of his left hand clenched and unclenched around the blankets on the couch, and he grinded his teeth in a tortured manner.

He didn't notice when she emptied the painkillers into his arm; there didn't seem to be any immediate effect, either. Instead, he continued to grimace, and was now tossing and turning, as if trying to escape the tight bonds of his pain.

Winry knew immediately what the next several hours were going to be like; it was an eerie replay of Ed, right after he had lost his limbs. A few days had gone by uneventfully, but suddenly his fever had intensified, and he'd spent an entire night tossing and turning, pleading in a feverish tone for both Al and his mother. Winry had been up the entire night, wetting a cloth and pressing it to Ed's forehead. It was going to be the same with Mustang.

Once again, history was stuck on 'repeat'. Winry filled a pan with water and pulled up a chair, just as the storm outside began to lash the windows with a violent smattering of rain and hail. The Flame Alchemist jerked again, nearly knocking her hand aside as she placed the cloth across his forehead, his features tightening into dark scowl. He fought with what little strength he had, but even with all his efforts, he could not hold back a long, strained moan of agony.

"General…" Winry murmured, addressing him by his title again.

"I thought it was just going to get better," He hissed, "…That the worst had already _passed_…"

How naïve of him, Winry surmised. It was only going to get worse, as the afternoon – already pitch black – faded into night. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Mustang clutched his side again.

"You shouldn't do that," Winry said, "You're going to make it bleed…"

"I don't care." He uttered, his voice a low, stubborn growl.

"I don't either," Winry replied, archly, "But I _don't_ want to have to change your bandages again!"

That was harsh, but Winry knew that the sudden tension in the room and in the air was beginning to have an effect on her, even more than her feelings towards the man. She felt oddly high-strung – first there was the storm, and now there was this. Outside, the rain poured down, and for the first time she worried that the levies around the river weren't going to hold. This storm, according to the radio broadcasts early in the day, was both slow-moving and powerful, likely to spawn massive crop damage and power outages throughout the country-side. Winry wasn't worried about a flood reaching Rockbell Automail – her home was some distance from the river – but if it overflowed the banks closer to the actual town of Risembool than there would doubtlessly be casualties. Add those worries to the fact that Mustang's feverishly pained cries were growing louder and longer, and Winry realized that her own nerves were going to be completely frayed by the end of the night.

"Just _try_ to breathe slowly," Winry said. "Breathe in, and breath out, and--"

"I'm not delivering a god damned _baby_. I don't need you to tell me how to breathe," He gasped out, as rudely as possible. Winry scowled at him.

"You're practically _hyperventilating._ It's just going to be worse if you--"

"—I'm not worried. I'll live through this." He hissed, clutching his side again. Winry watched his fingers curl around the bandaged area with a frown, before readjusting the blankets over his sweat-strewn frame. A tremendous clap of thunder made her wince, and she turned towards the windows irately, as if a cold glare was all it took to stop the storm in its tracks. No such luck. She turned back towards Mustang, who let out another strained yell and jerked to the left. There was no position he could move his body into that wouldn't hurt, but he was trying anyway – tossing back and forth as if trying to escape from the confines of his own skin and muscle, if that was what it took to rid himself of the pain.

It occurred to Winry that, just by being conscious, he had _some_ hope of escaping from a bit of the pain. Frowning, she adjusted the cloth on his forehead and addressed him again.

"General…"

No response, but she forged ahead. If she could just _distract _him it was possible that he would let go of his bandaged right side, and stop thrashing about and tearing open some of the other half-healed wounds on his body. Yet there was no safe, neutral common ground between them that could have been used for conversation. She knew _nothing_ about the man other than his various wrongdoings, and forcing him to wallow in his sin would just make things worse. That was what Ed had done. She was going to ensure that Roy Mustang did not do the same.

Ed. He was their only common ground, the one thing that tied them together. Winry swallowed and continued, her tone slightly hesitant. "…Ed… _Fullmetal,_" She amended, sarcastically, "always used to complain about storms like these. Sometimes when we were younger, we'd have sleepovers here in the clinic, and whenever there were thunder storms, Al and I usually ended up hiding under Ed's bed while he made fun of us. He pretended not to be scared, but I could tell he was. But he was just like that -- wouldn't admit being scared of anything, even if his life depended on it. And even when he whined about it, I could tell he always liked having us hide under his bed, because it gave him a chance to pretend like he was protecting Al and me from the storm. But that's just like him. Ed rants for hours about _everything_… He's such a brat. Whenever he _really_ likes someone, or something, he'll rant about it… Except milk, anyway. He _hated_ milk… Actually, I think he never really _tried_ milk, but he loved to have an excuse to complain about something. One time he went on for fifty-five minutes and thirty-two seconds about how disgusting it was– Al and I kept track."

She didn't know if her inane ramblings were helping to distract him, but continued anyway, noting that he was, at least, keeping still and not making any noise. His jaw was still clenched.

"He was obsessed about his height, too. You probably know that. He always came up with the _weirdest_ insults I've ever heard... But that's Ed, I guess… Still… If he's… If he is alive, I don't think he'll ever break 5'6…" Winry trailed off, coming to the looming shadow that hung over any conversation concerning Ed. _If_ he was still alive. _If_ he and his brother, who had disappeared years ago, were still around – somewhere in Amestris, somewhere in the world, obviously far from here – the 'if' was almost overwhelming.

For a long time the two were silent, before Mustang finally managed to speak, his voice ragged and weak. "He's still alive… I know he is."

Winry was about to respond, when a sudden thought occurred to her. All of Mustang's odd questions, his continual queries concerning Ed's whereabouts…

"Have you _seen_ him?" She asked, but Mustang was suddenly moaning in pain, the temporary respite her words had given him disappearing. He clutched his side and attempted to stifle another moan. Perhaps this was not a good subject, but what _else_ was there? Yet to her absolute shock, the man spoke again, obviously struggling to keep his voice even.

"...One time when he was on a mission… He demolished an entire building just because the owner called him short…" Mustang muttered. "…There was no one in the building at the time… I think it was some empty old factory… But from what I hear he used alchemy to blow it up, and later re-transmuted it into a giant statue of a cow… Which is ironic, considering he hates milk, and his refusal to drink it might be one of the reasons why he is so short… I still remember receiving the invoice for it…"

Winry dared to smile. "When was that?"

"He was… thirteen or fourteen, I think… teenage hormones probably had something to do with it. It was a long time before he…"

Mustang trailed off, clenching his teeth and gripping his wounded side so tightly his fingers began to whiten. Winry watched with bated breath, but – miraculously – he managed to speak again. "…Fullmetal compensated for his height in any way he could… I never told him… But even as small as he was, his presence always seemed to be the largest and most noticeable wherever he went…"

"I can see what you mean." Winry agreed, amiably. "Not to mention he could scare the wits out of men twice his size whenever he was throwing one of his tantrums."

The thinnest hint of a smirk spread over Mustang's face, but it vanished swiftly into another agonized grimace. His pain was intensifying – Winry could tell by the distress manifesting its presence on his face and the ragged way in which he breathed. She waited patiently for him to grow still, before touching his forehead and feeling his raging fever.

"I feel cold…" He muttered, acknowledging the fact that she was touching his forehead for the first time. Somehow, it made it easier for Winry, who pushed his thick black hair back slightly and lingered, frowning.

"…You're burning up inside, though." She replied, mentally envisioning _her_ skin starting to sizzle just from contact with his. "…I'd better take your temperature. If it gets too high we might have to start dousing you in ice or something."

"…I'll be fine."

And now, he was being belligerent again. Winry paused and scowled, realizing that Ed's presence had been _big_ enough to bring a momentary peace between them, but now that the topic had changed he was being a stubborn bastard once more. Still, she was not going to be deterred. Within five minutes she returned with a thermometer.

"Open your mouth."

"I'm sure it's not serious." He muttered.

"You _idiot_, you're missing an _arm, _you might have an infection, and you nearly bled to death," Winry snapped, her temper peaking unexpectedly. "Your _brain_ might be boiling in your own _head_ right now! I don't want you dying on my couch!"

His single eye opened and he looked at her, and it might have been sardonic or even condescending – where it not for the fact that he was shaking so badly. Winry poked him in the nose with the thermometer, and he rolled his eye before taking it in his mouth.

"Don't bite down on it unless you want mercury poisoning," Winry said.

"I'm aware of that."

She left him momentarily, leaving him to shiver on the couch. Winry's stomach growled hungrily – she'd skipped lunch today – and just as she started across the kitchen towards the icebox, the lights flickered, dimmed, and abruptly died.

"…Damn." Winry said, in the darkness. Outside, afternoon was swiftly fading into evening; now the only light in the house was from the lightning outside. It wasn't like it was unexpected, anyway; Winry yanked an apple out of the basket on the windowsill and devoured it in as few bites as possible, before returning to his side. Roy Mustang opened his single eye and looked at her briefly, before closing it and returning to his own personal hell. She watched him struggle for a few moments – breathing heavily, tossing his head from side to side, and now _rubbing_ compulsively at his wounded shoulder – before withdrawing the thermometer.

"What is it?" He asked.

Winry opened her mouth, and then closed it. "Um… Not bad."

He looked at her for a moment, before closing his eye and turning back towards the ceiling, as he had done what seemed like countless times over the last few days. "You're not a very convincing liar."

She scowled at him.

For a while, silence reigned. His pain seemed to be cyclical; at first he would lie gasping and hyperventilating, clutching the blankets with his left hand, his chest rising and falling in the most ragged manner imaginable. Then he would jerk his entire body from left to right, perhaps trying to find _some_ position that would lessen his own pain, and finally, he would let out a low moan and clutch his side, often rubbing or squeezing in a manner that was sure to start his bleeding before long. Winry watched, biting her lip.

She shouldn't have been so worried, she realized, but the walls were starting to break down. No matter _what_ she thought of him – or how he acted – he was in pain and alone. Perhaps it was his fault, perhaps it wasn't… The greatest quandary here was something she had always been aware of; Roy Mustang was her parent's murderer.

But he was not a bad person.

She didn't know whether those two beliefs were paradoxical or not. She might have hated him, but she didn't want him to suffer. Perhaps she wanted her parents back, but Winry was now wise enough to know that it would never happen, and his own death would do nothing to make it happen, either. A long time she had _wished_ death upon her parents' murderer, and for a while she had even wished death on Roy Mustang. And yet…

…As she watched him struggle to control his pain, she realized that his life had become something much like a living death.

"General?"

No response. She reached over, taking his un-mutilated left shoulder and giving him a slight shake. He shivered, but did not respond. Winry let out a sigh, and rose to her feet. It was cold and she wanted light – reading a book, or idly working on some automail even though her latest order was complete - would help the time pass.

The strange thing was that she didn't remember _consciously_ deciding it was necessary to stay with him through the night. Maybe it was only because she had done the same for Ed… And there were times when Roy Mustang looked at her, with his prideful, fiery gaze, and _reminded_ her acutely of Edward Elric.

She found her matches and knelt by the fireplace, striking up a small flame and feeding it with newspaper and a few fresh logs. It occurred to her, after a moment, that he was watching her. Winry turned, and was utterly shocked to see that he, for the first time, appeared to be visibly frightened.

"…Is something wrong?" Winry asked. He stared at her for a long time, before turning back towards the ceiling and closing his eye.

"…General," Winry addressed him by title and then, with courage she didn't know he had, tried a new tact. "…R… Roy?" The word felt sour and unnatural on her tongue.

"…It's fire." He replied, his voice oddly muted. "…I… Never mind. It's foolish."

"What is it?" Winry insisted, impatiently. Just like Ed, he had a habit of not telling anyone _anything_… But then, the relationship between her and him was nothing like the one between her and Ed.

Once again, it took a long time. In fact, she had already sat down next to him and opened a book on automail before he responded, clutching his side and shivering horribly.

"…This will sound ridiculous… But I have a fear of fire…"

She stared at him. "How the heck_-_"

"…It's not like… It's not what you'd think… If I'm not in control of it, it scares me." To her surprise, he let out a dry laugh. "…It's funny… but I could say that about many things, couldn't I?"

Winry said nothing. Quite truthfully… He frightened her, too. Alchemists in general bothered Winry, because they were _different_ – nearly an entirely new subset of people – but those like Roy Mustang, and the Elric brothers, scared her more than most. Trying to push the thoughts aside, Winry refocused on her reading, and he refocused on his pain.

An hour went by with surprising swiftness, even after her reading was cut short by a gust through the chimney that extinguished the small fire. The day – night, perhaps – was now pitch black and the storm continued to rage outside. The house creaked with each gust of wind; lightning forked through the sky and illuminated them, briefly outlining his form in the darkness and revealing that he was now completely immersed in his pain; rain buffeted the windows with fury, and the temperature dropped so low that, even bundled in a sweater, Winry shivered slightly.

"Do you still feel cold?" She asked.

"…No… not any more…" He uttered.

"Maybe that's a good thing." She suggested. "…When Ed was like this, it could last for days…"

Mustang hesitated, and then said the most haunting words she'd heard all night.

"…This pain is nothing… compared to what he's been through…"

Winry felt like she'd been pierced through with ice. She recognized the words, and even though it was a coincidence, it hit home far more powerfully than she could have ever expected. Ed had said the same thing about Al. Now Mustang was saying the same thing about Ed, and it scared her more than it ever should have.

She swallowed, suddenly, her throat feeling oddly restricted. "…You shouldn't keep grabbing your side like that. You're disrupting the bandage." Winry watched him for a moment, before her fingers shot forth and curled around his wrist. He glared at her. "Quit _scratching_ at it, you idiot!"

He gave her a look of surprise, before scowling rudely. "...I can change my own bandages next time. Don't worry about it."

"…I don't _CARE!_ Stop messing around with it, you're probably just making yourself hurt even worse."

"That's not even possible..."

"Oh, I'm sure it is. Here!" Winry pried his hand away from his maimed shoulder, an easy task given his weakened state, and forced her hand into his sweaty palm, clutching it tightly. "I know it hurts, so whenever it gets bad, just squeeze my hand. Okay?"

"I don't need you to hold my hand--"

"Get over yourself," Winry replied. "If you can't stop scratching at it and rubbing it, this is what we're going to have to do."

"I'm going to end up breaking--"

"You are _not_ going to break my fingers," Winry replied, feeling his grip tighten. It hurt, but only a little. He was too weak to cause any permanent damage.

"…I don't… want someone… to hold my hand…" He forced out.

"Stop being such a stubborn ass," Winry replied. "And quit acting like Ed. You know what? Ed and you are like two peas in a pod."

"…I'm not anything like Fullmetal--"

"You're acting _exactly_ like him. Both of you are stubborn brats who won't accept help or take anyone's advice or even _admit_ that you're in pain. It's _just_ like him… It's almost frightening, actually, considering you made the exact same mistake, too."

He opened his eye suddenly, studying her. "…Did we now? Just what is that?"

"Human transmutation!"

His eye narrowed. "Didn't I already tell you--?"

"That it was an explosion? I think I already told _you_ that you're full of--"

"Do you honestly think I'd watch her die in my stead, and then try to sacrifice _my_ life to bring her back?" Mustang asked, and Winry almost recoiled. He was truly and visibly angry for the first time – it must have distracted him from his pain, too, because he was suddenly half-sitting up and glaring at her, extricating his hand from her fingers in one jerky motion.

"You're an alchemist--"

"That's right, but it doesn't mean I'm foolish enough to try human transmutation," He snarled.

"Maybe if you were desperate," Winry replied, surprised by her calm and flat her voice was. "…And you seemed pretty desperate the other night. Besides -- I've seen all kinds of amputated wounds, and I can _tell_ that your arm was taken off in the same way that Ed's was. You seem to keep on forgetting that I'm an _automail_ mechanic, and I know these things. I've _seen_ limbs blown off in battle, and I've seen the aftereffects of rebounds. There's a difference."

Something on his face changed, and he slumped back into the couch, glaring at the ceiling with a single wounded eye. Finally, after another prolonged silence, Winry spoke.

"How did it happen?" They were back on square one. Strange, Winry hadn't realized until now that they'd left it in the first place.

But then, perhaps, something _had_ changed between them. He turned towards her with a cold expression, and in an odd voice, he replied, "…You know what? I don't remember."

That was the most ridiculous explanation possible…

…But the chilling look on his face said that he was not lying.

"How in the _hell_ can you lose an arm and not remember it?" Winry asked, incredulously.

"I didn't try to bring her back to life." Mustang replied, coldly. "…If I knew it would work, I'd do it – I know I'm not worth dying for. But it's _not _possible." He paused, and his face darkened, as his hand strayed towards his bandaged shoulder once more. Winry, unthinkingly, intercepted his fingers and drew them back into her own grasp.

"So you honestly don't remember?" She asked, finally.

He was silent.

…And he was through the rest of the night, unless, Winry thought, one counted his delirious fever-induced ramblings. More apologies, more pleas for forgiveness, and more names – Maes, Hawkeye – and ranks – Lieutenant, Colonel, Brigadier General, Major... Winry spent hours watching and wondering, listening to the storm, until the winds and rain subsided, and his hand, resting in hers, went limb. She might have panicked, but she could see his breathing – his chest now rose and fell evenly, and he appeared to have finally found peace from his nightmares. His phantom pains and fever had probably receded, she concluded...

…And for once, she did not ponder why she felt relief when she saw peace spread across his gaunt features.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Mercury, the Winged Messenger**

Having a weak, starved alchemist suffering from blood loss and slumped across her couch was beginning to wear on her, Winry decided. It was now early, early morning, just as the sun began to peek over the horizon – although lingering clouds made everything gray. Outside, the temperature was dropping – the tempestuous storms of late fall were giving way to the chill of winter in Risembool too swiftly, again reminding Winry of one thing. It was bad enough that automail was among the most painful procedures imaginable without considering that the cold weather, for most automail users, was excruciating. Cold wore upon the parts and froze the metal, making it more painful and difficult to use. Ed had made no secret of the fact that _he_ preferred warmer climates, although she didn't think she'd ever heard him complain about his automail.

The fool slumped across her couch, though, was delusional. It was simply not possible to obtain automail and learn to use it in two weeks. Still, it had been a while since he'd mentioned it –perhaps the pain had played some part in convincing him that his plan was downright _idiotic_. Winry checked him over with a scowl, studying his face, adjusting his blankets, and taking a quick peek at his bandages. As she suspected, his struggles last night had made his wound bleed again.

Last night. Winry knew Roy Mustang had learned a few hard-earned lessons in pain, now. He was in line for a few more, too – painful times were ahead for the General. She, Winry Rockbell, was going to be the purveyor of some of that pain; the one who was going to fuse a metal limb into his nerves, wire by wire, while he writhed on an operating table. The one thing that defined automail surgery was the fact that pain meant things were going _well_.

She wondered if he was going to cry like a baby.

For a while, Winry stood above _his_ couch, studying the man. He lied on his stomach now, face buried in a pillow and body swathed in blankets, even paler than before and shifting in his sleep only occasionally, small flashes of discomfort flickering across his face.

From time to time, the discomfort morphed into what was plainly anguish, even fear… Winry was fascinated by watching emotions pass over his face like shadows. He was, once more, at war with his nightmares. Winry didn't pity him for it. Few had more bloodstains in their past then he did – he _deserved_ to be haunted for what he'd done, to be torn apart, to suffer through heartache and agony.

/If only I believed that./

Winry paused – a stray thought passed through her mind unbidden, and she frowned down at him.

/Why would other people keep on getting hurt for his punishment? Hughes… Hawkeye… He cared about them, and he lost them both. And now he's lost his arm… His eye…/

Mustang shifted slightly, changing positions in his sleep as another nightmare took hold. A few blankets slipped away, revealing his heavily bandaged right shoulder. Winry reached forth to push the blankets back up, and as she leaned down, she froze. There was something wrong, here…

/What else does he have left to lose, really/

Out from the bandage, and snaking across his pale skin, was a jagged red line that Winry recognized immediately. She had seen it before in other automail patients, the exact same thing, but now, when she saw the evidence on Roy Mustang, she felt like vomiting.

/His life. About the only thing left to give is his life./

As she'd feared and suspected over the last few days, the wound was infected. Winry stared at him for the longest time and wondered – just what could be done for him now? Irrationally enough, she wanted to plead for mercy from a god she didn't believe in. If Mustang died, it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring her parents back. It wouldn't bring Hawkeye back. And it _certainly_ wasn't going to make their losses any less painful. But here he was, and the fact remained that most soldiers who ended up with infected wounds died slow, painful deaths because of them. Winry swallowed, trying to reign in her emotions – this _feeling_, this sudden fear, wasn't going to help. What was it, anyway? Was it that she didn't want someone to die on her couch, or was it that she honestly did not want _Roy Mustang_ to die under her watch? And yet, at the crux of it all…

/ I _have_ to care for him. /

Winry reached down, taking his left shoulder. His skin burned under her cold fingers, but the mere touch wasn't enough to wake him. She couldn't take her eyes off the burning red lines spreading out from under the bandage, the so-obvious signs of his infection as it spread towards his heart. It was so close already… If Winry were a real medical doctor she might have even thought of him as being a lost cause. But she wasn't, not like her parents had been, and this infection – which had probably festered inside of him during the entirety of the last few days – was not how his life was going to end.

"General." She shook him gently. "General. Mustang…?"

His eyelash fluttered after a moment, and he reluctantly opened his eye, giving her a groggy, sidelong glance.

"Huh… Lieutenant?"

Winry's hand stilled on his shoulder. Something odd passed over his tired features, before he let his eye fall shut and his head return to the pillow.

"Lieutenant… Just let me sleep… I'll get the paperwork done later…S'not like it's any hurry…" He mumbled unthinkingly, before burying his face. Winry looked at him for a moment, before sighing and resuming her attempts at waking him.

"General Mustang. I'm _not_ Lieutenant Hawkeye. Wake up! I've got to--"

"'M so tired," He mumbled, his tone low, mostly incoherent, and hoarse.

"I'll bet you are. WAKE UP!"

Mustang's shoulders both tensed and he turned to look at Winry again, fixing her with a single dark eye. The sleepy haze in it faded, but it still glimmered with a sick, feverish heat coupled with an absolute lack of recognition. For a moment, he stared at her in utter bewilderment, and she looked at him with almost open pity. He was pathetic, and growing more so as time passed – his face looked thinner and more haunted than ever, and his eye was so heavily lined it seemed to be bruised. After a short while, though, recognition returned.

"What?" He asked, guardedly, although there was a note of pain in his voice.

"We've got to change your bandages, and… I want to take a closer look at the area around your wound. I think it might be infected." That was an understatement – she knew for a fact that it was _very_ infected. Still, Mustang obliged, painfully moving to a sitting position. Winry left him to gather her supplies, trying to remain clear-headed and calm.

/What in the hell am I going to do/ Her mind queried, forlornly. She couldn't come up with an answer. The first step was to clean and re-bandage the wound, but that wasn't going to help. It was too late for prevention – the infection had already set in and was spreading at an alarming rate. Only twelve hours before, the redness hadn't been visible, but it was now, suggesting that _Winry_ had made the mistake of just _assuming_ that when he'd first shown up, he hadn't had an infection. Not that it was very plainly manifesting itself, it really _was_ hopeless.

Yet despite it all, Winry realized that she was thinking in paradoxical terms again. She wanted to save him, and yet, for years, she had wished death upon her parents' killers.

She had, actually, up until the very moment when that faceless solider responsible had been given a name and an identity. It was strange, but it now occurred to her that she never really _had_ wished death upon Roy Mustang…

…And perhaps the only reason now that she was able to look at their killer in such a way was that still, after so many years, she had never _really_ thought of Roy Mustang and the murderer as the same, two beings indistinguishable from one another. Somewhere in between the two was a frightened coward of a soldier and State Alchemist who had dutifully followed the most unreasonable of orders.

The same alchemist sat on her couch, head down and single eye staring at the floor unseeingly. He hardly reacted as she came in and sat behind him, and while he was no longer tense, his odd state of relaxation seemed more like listless torpor. Winry clipped away the bandages and let them fall off the couch, onto the carpet, in a bloody mass. When finished, she studied the place where his arm had once been with narrowed eyes and lips drawn in a tight line.

The festering red lines moving outwards from the wound were plain, and the wound itself looked ugly – discolored, skin swollen, severely red and caked with dry blood, even though a brutal stitching job had been attempted at some point. Winry, now really only pretending that she knew what she was doing, picked up a damp cloth and began to gently dab off the injury. He winced ever so slightly.

"I'm just cleaning the area," Winry said, trying to sound unconcerned. "There's a lot of dried blood around--"

"Is it infected?" He asked, cutting her off and yet sounding quite unconcerned, himself.

Winry sighed. "Yes. It is."

He said nothing. His dark head was bowed, and his shoulders tensed slightly, before he slipped back into that strangely lethargic state again. Winry's eyes carefully slid down his bare back, noting the fact that some of his other injuries – the bruises and minor cuts – were also starting to look quite aggressive. She couldn't help but notice something else, too, as she sat this close to him.

"You need a bath," Winry commented, wrinkling her nose.

"I'm sure I do." He muttered.

"Some of the wounds might heal faster if they were, uh… a little cleaner. You're kind of dirty." Winry finished. "…And… you smell."

Vanity, even at this point, had not entirely left Roy Mustang. He tensed again, and muttered, in a voice that resembled a low growl, "It's not like I have any other option--"

Winry responded to his anger with patience that surprised even her. "You can use the bath tub upstairs. After that, you should go shack up in one of the bedrooms. They're warmer, and it'll be easier for me to take care of you."

Mustang didn't reply until after a few moments, and when he did, he sounded almost startlingly unconcerned about the entire situation.

"What about my automail?"

"What about it?" Winry asked, slowly.

"Is it done yet?"

"I haven't even _measured_ you yet."

"Why don't you, then?"

Winry stared at him from behind, incredulously.

"Are you _insane?_" She asked, her voice raising and almost cracking on the last word. "Your wound is _infected_. You're not going to be able to take automail until it's healed."

"I can't wait that long."

"Why not? Do you actually know how many people survive if they get the operation while they have an infection?"

He didn't respond.

"Almost no one! Grandma and I _never_ installed automail on anyone with an infection. It makes it a hundred times more dangerous. Now, look." Winry rose to her feet, and circled around to face him. He looked up at her only momentarily, and appeared to be trying to ignore her and her logic.

"Can you get up, or do I need to help you?"

"My legs are fine," He grumbled, although the stubborn expression that seemed so permanently etched across his pale features wavered when he actually tried to put weight on his legs. He was weak. Winry could pinpoint the reason why – his pain, his fever, and his injuries were making him sluggish, and all his energy right now focused on fighting the festering illness inside of his body. Instead of watching him struggle, Winry wordlessly pulled his remaining arm over her shoulders and half-supported him as he tottered towards the stairs.

The stairs themselves were a torture on both of them. He limped, stumbled, and breathed heavily, while Winry struggled to bear his weight. He was, after all, considerably taller than her, even though he was skinny and practically on the verge of starvation. Even worse, though, was the fact that he could barely hold his own weight – most of it was on Winry, probably far more than he ever would have admitted. Winry bit back a sigh of relief when they reached the top of the stairs and he managed the last few steps on his own, leaning heavily against the wall. Winry followed him into the bathroom, and paused in the doorway, watching him slump forth and lean against the counter.

"Will you be all right? You won't drown or anything, will you?"

He didn't answer. Instead, his single dark eye focused on her for a moment before he looked away, a strange, wry smirk sliding across his features.

"What now?" Winry asked, folding her arms impatiently. He was acting as strangely and as inscrutably as ever, probably just for the sake of annoying her.

"Nothing." He muttered. "I'll be fine. You've done just about everything else, but you don't have to bathe me, too. I can manage."

Winry scowled and turned, leaving him for the moment and not even wanting to imagine how unbelievably _awkward_ helping him bathe _would_ have been. Behind her, as she started back down the stairs, she heard the faucet squeak and the water pour into the tub.

/Good. He'll be all right, for now./

Winry focused her energy, with a single-minded intensity, on fixing breakfast for both of them. Whether he wanted it or not, she was going to feed him – he was getting far too thin, and if there was some chance of him recovering, he needed food.

He also needed medicine. She was going to have to go to East City, most likely, for the pills he needed, although the thought of just leaving him here for a day – maybe more – when he was sick, weak, and in pain – was troubling. Yet it had to be done – there was no getting around the fact that he _might_ die, and he would certainly die without some kind of medication for the infection.

She was not letting Roy Mustang die in her home.

After shoveling eggs, bacon, and pancakes onto two separate plates, Winry left them for the moment and started on her way back upstairs. Fully aware of how awkward this was probably going to be, she grabbed a towel and a pair of pajama bottoms for the closet, fully intent on depositing them in the bathroom for his use. She doubted he had any major qualms – she'd seen him at his absolute worst for the last few days – but still couldn't help but be a little tentative, as she edged open the bathroom door.

Mustang still sat in the tub, wiping his forehead off with a cloth. Next to him, on the side of the tub, was his eye patch. He let the cloth drop after a moment, revealing his ruined face – no, three quarters of his face was still devastatingly handsome even despite his illness – it was just the sad region around his left eye, maimed, pitted, and brutally scarred by an assassin's bullet, that seemed marred beyond recognition. He looked in her direction suddenly.

When he saw her, it occurred to Winry that knocking would have been the far safer option. He was a proud man, and a vain one, too, but Winry had the feeling even the least self-conscious person might have felt the same as he did. Shame on his features evident, he recoiled briefly, staring at her in shock before swiftly reaching for his eye patch. But then, nothing was ever easy for Roy Mustang – it slipped from his fingers and onto the tiled bathroom floor, out of his reach. Winry watched in a kind of muted horror as he rose his remaining hand and covered the left side of his face, glaring at her with his other eye.

"What?"

Winry almost stumbled back at the rancor in his tone, but what struck her the most poignantly was how _panicked_ he seemed, just because someone had seen him like this. Something about it frightened her.

He shouldn't have been _this_ ashamed. Yes, the wound was brutal, but Mustang had fought the Fuhrer, one of the Homunculi, and _lived_ -- his missing eye was just another battle scar, like the dozens he already had, and that battle had saved Amestris from pointless wars…

…Until Xing and Drachma had invaded, and he had been forced to the frontlines once more. And while the last war had taken his innocence, this one had taken an even more grievous toll.

"You don't have to hide it," Winry finally said, after a cold, uncomfortable silence. "I already saw it the other day when I was treating you… Besides." She said. "I've seen worse. And you've lived through worse, haven't you? You shouldn't be ashamed."

"What do you want?" He growled, choosing to pointedly ignore her attempts at reassuring him.

"Here." She slammed the towel and the pajama pants down on the counter, frustration returning in a flash. "Your clothes and your towel. Okay?"

For a moment that was both awkward and almost shamefully long, they stared at one another – before, finally, he lowered his hand as if in defeat, and leaned over the side of the tub, raising out of the water and reaching for his eye-patch. Winry covered her eyes swiftly. When she heard him slump back into the tub, she uncovered her eyes and looked towards him, very aware that she was blushing furiously. He didn't seem to care, though – Mustang sat, eye patch in hand and his expression almost bleak.

"…You shouldn't have to look at this." He said, tiredly, referring to his maimed left eye-socket.

Winry just barely had the presence of mind to respond, although she changed the subject. "You can handle getting dressed and going into the bedroom, can't you?" She couldn't keep the hopefulness out of her tone, though she certainly tried.

"I'll be fine. Unless you'd like to help?" Mustang slid the eye patch back on carefully, and she stumbled out of the bathroom, shaking her head and very aware that – despite the fact that she _had_ seen worse – she had stared at his face the _entire_ time. In a rare moment of self-doubt, she admitted that she was, by all means, being _quite_ rude to him.

She went back downstairs, hearing the sounds of water splashing and him slowly and painfully moving from the tub.

The kitchen was silent, their plates still steaming. Winry reached for his, just as the phone rang – loudly jarring, and discordant, it shattered through the quiet morning and tore her from what had been a thoughtful reverie. Over the last few days, it had been easy to forget about the outside world… but it occurred to her that it was still _out_ there, there was still a war, and that _she_ had forgotten to ship her last batch of automail parts to East City. The phone rang a second time and she scrambled to get it, wrenching it off the wall and jamming it to her ear.

"Hello? Rockbell Automail, how may I help you?"

The other line was silent for a moment, before a voice – strained and tired – grunted, "Good morning. Is this Ms. Winry Rockbell?"

"This is her! What can I do for you?" She asked, her voice high, fast, and loud.

/I sound both nervous _and_ suspicious. I hope this isn't a business call./

"Um, Ms. Rockbell? You might not remember me, but I'm Lieutenant Jean Havoc. One of General Mustang's-"

"-Of course I remember you!" Winry said, her voice _still_ a little too high and loud.

/Havoc. _Havoc._ The blond guy. Blue eyes. Always had a cigarette. Why is he calling _here_? He can't possibly _know…_/

"—Right," He said, dubiously. "I was wondering, Miss. Have you, uh… Have you seen any signs of The Boss – I mean, Ed – or Al lately? The Elric brothers?" He clarified, unnecessarily.

Winry was silent, momentarily, stricken by how odd the question was – especially considering the fact that Mustang had asked her the same thing several times only a few nights before. Her answer for Havoc was the same. "No. I haven't. Why?"

"Oh, uh… It's nothing Miss, er… Rockbell. You see, I'm calling from East City, and um… Well, things haven't been going so well, but…"

/He has no idea… Or does he/

"…Listen, Ms. Rockbell. There are some things that I, uh, would like to talk to you about. In person. I was thinking of, uh, stopping by your clinic tomorrow."

"Here? In Risembool?" Winry asked, amazed and suspicious all at once. Havoc sounded as uncomfortable and suspicious of her as she was of him, which immediately warned her that there was something _not_ right about the entire situation – connections were starting to form, and keeping in mind what she already knew about Mustang and Hawkeye, they were unpleasant ones.

"Yes. Risembool. Or you would rather come to East City?"

"Well… I've got a few... errands to run, and I might be headed that way--"

"Errands, huh? Like what?"

"He was being oddly _nosy_, especially considering the fact that they hardly knew one another except through Ed. Winry uneasily toyed with the phone cord and replied in a guarded tone. "Oh, I've just got to pick up a few medical supplies at the pharmacy. I'm running low on some things, and this is a busy time of year."

She was, of course, thinking of Mustang. He was the only customer she'd seen in the last two months.

"Oh? Well, Miss… I can pick up a few items and bring them out to you, if you'd like. See, I've already bought the train tickets, and--"

"Oh really? Well…"

/This is strange…/

"…I need some antibiotics and painkillers. Do you have a pen handy?"

"Yes."

Winry listed a few medications, and afterwards – even though her suspicions were mounting – she realized that this probably was the luckiest thing that had happened all day. If Havoc picked up the medicine, she didn't need to worry about leaving Mustang alone and ill all day in Risembool while she went to East City. Unfortunately, it did require a certain amount of trust in Havoc, too, which she wasn't sure if she was willing to grant or not. Nonetheless, there really wasn't any better alternative.

"Right-o, miss." Havoc said, after she finished listing and spelling the names of a few drugs. "I'll be there, uh… Tomorrow, early in the morning. Okay?"

"Just one more thing. Why? Is it for questioning, or--"

"We'll talk about it when I get there, Miss Rockbell. Just, um… Keep your eyes peeled. I'll see you then."

The receiver clicked, and Winry stared at the phone, utterly bemused. There were many things strange about the situation – and, worse, what was going to happen if Havoc _saw_ Mustang? Thinking of the man, in his sad, wounded shape, she wondered if he really wanted to be seen by anyone.

Their breakfast was cooling fast. Winry grabbed Mustang's and started up the stairs, feeling an odd, growing sense of dread and apprehension. Things hadn't made sense in the first place, but now she had the feeling that the rickety understanding of the situation she had gained over the last few days was crumbling and giving way to more confusion.

Mustang was in the bedroom, clad in the loose-fitting pajama pants reserved for ill patients. He sat with a bundle of bandages in front of him and a look of abject humiliation on his face.

"So you found the bandages," Winry remarked, putting his plate down on the bed stand. He said nothing.

"Don't worry. I'll redo them for you."

The moment she sat down, he spoke, sounding as weary and suspicious as she felt. "Who just called?"

"Lieutenant Havoc. He's coming tomorrow. The good thing is that he's bringing your medicines, even though he _really_ doesn't know it."

"He can't see me."

"Why not?"

"I don't want him to know about this." Mustang replied, as if it were obvious.

"But he's your friend, isn't he?"

"He's my subordinate. None of them need to see me like this. Besides," Mustang said, distantly, "I'm MIA. I'm not supposed to be found."

Odd words, Winry mused, but now, she was starting to understand…

…As it dawned upon her that Roy Mustang was a deserter, and, quite possibly, on the run. Why, she did not know – and she really wasn't sure that he knew why, either.

For a while they were silent, before she moved back, done with the bandages, and spotted that look on his face again – a wry, pained smirk, full of an odd kind of anguish.

"Tell me. Do I really have any chance at all of recovering?" He asked, a strange bitterness dripping from his tone. Surely, he was aware in every way of how sick he was; Winry did not doubt that he could feel his body failing him.

How best to answer? He probably knew more than she did.

"Your wound is infected, and it might already be in your bloodstream. But if we can get you properly medicated, it's not too late." Winry paused. "You aren't actually _planning_ on dying, are you?"

To her – relief, was it? – he shook his head wearily. "No. I'm still afraid..." With that, Mustang slumped back on the pillows, and for a moment, a strange look passed over his face. Winry had seen it before…

"Listen." He began. "There is something you should hear…" And he paused, just long enough for Winry to look at him and realize what his next words were going to be – she could guess, anyway, what he gist of it was. His expression was distant, looking backwards into the past and within himself… She recognized that look even if she'd only seen it once before. He was thinking about her – and Ishbal – and her parents. Yet, most amazingly… She found that she didn't really want or _need_ to hear what he was going to say about it, especially now.

"You don't have to say." Winry forced out as he paused. She was a little shocked, though, when a look of open pain and guilt flashed over his features before they became blank and guarded once again.

"Even if I said it, it wouldn't mean anything, anyway." He remarked from where he lied propped up on the pillows, his voice now devoid of even the tiniest traces of strength or vigor.

"No. It wouldn't." Winry stabbed the plate with the fork, spearing one of the fluffy pancakes. He watched the process, tiredly, before speaking again in a low tone.

"I should thank you."

"For what?" She blurted, unthinkingly, not looking at him.

He must have given her an odd look, before shaking his head slightly. "For not forgiving me."

Winry went still, her hand dropping and the fork lightly tapping against the plate with a soft, ringing sound. She wanted to address _that_ – she really did – but instead, she swallowed the odd tightness in her throat and started the fork, laden with pancakes, towards his mouth.

"You don't have to feed me. I can do it myself." He suddenly changed into _himself_ again, and it broke Winry's silence.

"You're weak, you're sick, and you can hardly sit up. Just shut up and eat the damn pancake, okay?" Winry hissed.

Mustang scowled, but this time, he wisely relented and opened his mouth with a half-infuriated, half-embarrassed expression.

"There." She said, stuffing the fork inwards. "You'll never be healthy again if you don't eat. So stop being so stubborn about it. You asked for my help, and now you're getting it."

There was a strange look on Mustang's face, but she ignored it. She just wanted to _ignore_ how vulnerable he was right now, really, because if she didn't it was suddenly easier to imagine a scared, cowardly nineteen-year-old _boy_ in the midst of war, one who couldn't think for himself and found it just _easier_ to follow orders, one that was two years younger than _she_ was now and already responsible for the deaths of two people and thousands more…

/And yet, I want to forgive him. But he wouldn't let me… And maybe it's for the best./

Maybe he _couldn't_ be forgiven. He avoided her gaze for the rest of the meal, probably aware of his own vulnerability. He looked weak and sick – the infection was most definitely causing his fever now, and spreading throughout his entire body along with it, burning him out from the inside. At this rate, she wasn't even sure if he _could_ survive until the next morning, and the thought of him dying here was utterly harrowing. The only thing worse that she could imagine was him dying by her own hand.

/But it still feels like it is my fault…/

When he was done eating, neither said a word. Winry wished they could have talked to one another _more_ – almost like last night – and thinking of the time spent holding his _hand_ while he suffered made her realize that it was even worse now. He was too weak to writhe and toss in discomfort, or to moan in pain. But at least, he was clean. None of his other wounds were going to become infected. He was fed, too… All little victories, insignificant ones, but it was better than nothing.

Winry left him to sleep and went downstairs, forcibly looking for a distraction, anything that could make her forget how _wounded_ his single eye had looked as he had stared at her only moments before. There was her breakfast plate – probably cold as ice by now. The newspaper – she didn't even remember taking it in from the porch, and hadn't looked at it – rested on the front counter. Winry snatched at it, and read the headline.

/This is always a distraction. /

A moment later, though, she clutched it with suddenly nerveless fingers, staring in shock and horror.

**State Alchemist Edward Elric Spotted Near Eastern Border** read the headline. Below it, in smaller letters, though, was what drew her eyes and held them as she read it, over and over. **Fullmetal Alchemist named as a suspect in the likely death of General Roy Mustang, currently missing and last seen with Major Elric shortly after the latest attack on the border. **

Winry's understanding of the situation died with a last, feeble gasp.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Uranus, the Magician**

Winry shifted uncomfortably, and a growing soreness in her neck drove her towards awareness. She groaned slightly – her face was pressed into starchy blankets, but her spine was curved at an awkward ankle, with her bottom firmly planted in a chair and the rest of her body slumped forwards across a bed. Confused and groggy, Winry laid her head back down momentarily, willing for her sudden headache to vanish.

_What happened to me?_

Ah, yes. The events of last night came back to her, and she grimaced. The entire night had been spent alternating between working on spare automail parts and watching over Roy Mustang, who had now – indubitably – taken a turn for the worse.

His face was pallid and streaked with a fine sheen of sweat now, and his chest rose and fell raggedly. Every breath that escaped his half-open mouth seemed labored, and by day the condition of his wound seemed even worse. Winry had fallen asleep slumped across the bed, perilously close to where he laid, suffering. Quite the mistake, she mused – although she doubted he'd even noticed. It would have been embarrassing if he had.

…But then, perhaps he wasn't as unconscious as he seemed? As Winry slowly sat up, pushing a hand to her forehead and worrying over the condition of her hair, Mustang's single dark eye opened a crack and sluggishly turned towards her. There was a kind of recognition in his expression, but at the same time, she knew he was both seeing her and _not_ seeing her all at once. He spoke – his voice a soft, hoarse whisper that sounded like the death-rattle of a dying man – and his words only confirmed it.

"…Lieutenant?"

Winry stiffened, but said nothing. This was the second time he'd mistaken her for another, but it was so sad and pathetic now that she didn't even think it was worth correcting him. He either imagined a response, or took her silence as some kind of nonverbal cue, and continued.

"…Tell the others to take care of the paperwork today… I think I'm going to call in sick… Let Breda handle the invoices… He's got a mind for numbers and the like… And have Fury take a look at the telephone lines… Reception's been poor lately…"

She didn't _look_ like Riza Hawkeye, except, perhaps, for the hair, and she didn't _sound_ or _dress_ like the woman, either. Winry would have been more insulted where she not so sure that Mustang was hallucinating, seeing only the world that he wanted to see. She might have tried to knock some sense into him, too, perhaps with her wrench – only, judging by the intensity of his fever and the rapid spread of his infection, he was now trapped by his own mind, unable to fathom his own surroundings. As she sat and pitied him, he continued in the same weak, cracked tone.

"Fullmetal's supposed to come back from Youswell today, too… You'll probably have to type up his report again for him… he couldn't write legibly if his life depended on it…"

Roy Mustang's feverish hallucinatory world was a far kinder place than the present. Maybe it was really his mind's last attempt at saving itself –if he wallowed in the present it would only hasten along his descent, but if he went back to a time when he _might_ have been happy, Winry assumed – she didn't really know – maybe he'd last just a _little_ longer. Nonetheless, it didn't take any more than a quick glance to determine that he was already well on his way towards death.

In his hallucinations, Brigadier General Hughes and Lieutenant Hawkeye were both still alive.

And _Ed_.

Winry knew one thing – Ed had _obviously_ not murdered Roy Mustang. But what if Ed had played some part in his current state? The thought almost felt like a betrayal. If Ed had played some part… Why? How? When?

Was it justified? Had there been a reason?

Even if it was…

She watched Roy Mustang wince slightly, and continue to murmur, his tone a mere whisper but loud enough to be heard in the utter silence of Rockbell Automail.

"…And try to keep Hughes away, too… unless he's willing to do paperwork… Him and those damn pictures of his daughter… They went to the zoo the other day… So he's bound to have… eight or nine _thousand_ pictures of her… with every animal under the sun…"

_Maybe it's better to die living an illusion, than to live like he was before, _Winry thought, still staring at Mustang with slightly widened eyes and trying not to reach for him, try to shake him awake, or maybe just _plead_ with him to become his normal, stubborn, pompous self again.

"And… while you're at it… Send a message to West City and tell them to stop trying to pawn off worthless artillery on our forces out here… they can't just…" And he trailed off, obviously continuing the feverish string of orders in his head as he grew too weak to continue talking. Mustang shifted – a convulsive, spasmodic motion – and his remaining hand went to his side again, weakly clutching the empty socket where his arm had been. He was too weak to cause much damage this time.

"…My arm… what happened to my arm…" He hissed, after a moment, before falling eerily silent. Winry watched a dull flicker of pain flash over his features, before slowly rising to her feet. She couldn't watch any longer, as morbidly fascinating as it was. She didn't want to watch him suffer and die.

Because, at the heart of things – that was exactly what he was doing.

_If Havoc brings the medicine, it might already be too late…_

Winry half-closed the door behind her and gave him one last glance, before stumbling, wearily, down the stairs. Her mind was in a fog, too – not as potent as his, but still jaded with sorrow and exhaustion. What was _she_ going to do? The cruelly practical side of her own mind noted that having the dead body of a State Alchemist and General on her hands wasn't going to be an easy thing to hide. But then, all practicality aside… She felt almost nothing except a deep, bone-wrenching kind of sorrow. The house was as silent as a morgue.

Outside, an early, sharp winter had quickened its descent upon Risembool. Here in the East, long, rainy winters were more common than snow, but this year was steadily becoming an anomaly. The sky looked gray and nebulous, like snow – and the temperature, according to the thermometer hanging just outside the kitchen window, said that they were already dipping towards below freezing. Winry forlornly fiddled with the coffee pot, and rubbed her eyes, watching the sky as it threatened to snow, and wondering when Havoc was going to arrive.

Hopefully soon. Winry glanced towards the clock, and sat down, waiting for the coffee and idly rereading yesterday's newspaper. When her eyes flashed over that glaring, accusatory headline again, she forcibly flipped the paper over and focused on the weather forecast instead. Cloudy. Chance of snow 55. Highs in the upper thirties, lows in the mid-twenties. Unusual cold streak.

Winter blizzard expected by end of week.

Winry sighed moodily and tossed the paper away. The coffee was ready, now, but when she took a sip it seemed lukewarm and too strong for her tastes. She gulped it down nonetheless, and trudged into the living room. The couch, empty now, had bloodstains on it. She studied them, before setting down the coffee mug and flipping the cushions over to hide the more obvious stains. The rest blended in well with the ugly, mismatched shades of brown and red all over the couch, and for the first time, she considered simply dragging it out back and _burning_ it. She didn't think she'd ever want to sit on it again.

His uniform was crumbled nearby, bringing her back to the first night. It was lucky that no one had unexpectedly dropped by over the last few days – most anyone would have recognized that the crumpled uniform had the stars and stripes of a general on its shoulders. Winry lifted it, studying the rips and bloodstains as she held it at a distance, and trying to make sense out of it. The uniform was faded and old, but the right sleeve was in tact. The same applied for the white undershirt he had been wearing, which was in a ragged, bloody pile on the floor. If she wasn't already _sure_… If it didn't already seem _clear_ enough that Alchemy was involved…

Winry carefully picked up both the uniform and the shirt by their non-bloodied portions, and, not knowing what else to do with them, she stuffed both into a laundry hamper and hoped they looked inconspicuous, if anyone came and dared to look. As she drew away, something caught her attention – a glint of silver, dangling from a burnished chain.

_His watch._

Winry drew it out of a pocket on the front of his uniform, surprised to see that it was badly scuffed, battered, and bent. Opening it up – and distantly thinking of what Ed had written inside of his – she saw that the watch itself no longer worked, despite its exacting workmanship. And, engraved into the side of the watch…

…Winry wanted to vomit, or laugh, or scream – she was torn between the three. This was disgusting. This was pathetic. This… But it made sense, didn't it? All the great Alchemists weren't _normal_ people – they had burdens, and obsessions, and most every alchemist Winry had ever met or heard of had _some_ kind of ulterior motive or plan behind their alchemy, themselves, and their actions. And here was yet another example of obsession, but it struck her personally – more personally than even the engraving inside of Ed's watch.

And wasn't the similarity sickening? Just like Ed. He was _just_ like Ed – maybe older, maybe a little more jaded, maybe with a tighter rein over himself and his emotions, but at the root of it, they were both similar in all the wrong ways. Winry's hand tightened around the watch in her hand, as she read it over and over again, almost in disbelief.

There was a date here, too, only a year – 1905, a decade ago, the end of the Ishbal rebellion – followed by _those _words, the ones that felt like a condemnation.

_Don't forget._

Mustang had done a far neater job of carving, of course. And _after_ those words…

_Rockbell._

He had carved the name of the doctors he'd murdered into his watch. Of course, those doctors happened to be Winry's parents. Certainly. How could he have known, after all, that he would meet their _daughter_ some seven years later, that he would be under her mercy a full _fifteen_ years after the fact? Winry felt a wash of rage. Don't forget. How _could_ he forget? He didn't _deserve_ to forget. He deserved to see their faces, every night, just like she did…

…To be fair, Winry was invading his personal space, but she already knew one of his darkest secrets, anyway. He was a coward. He had killed two unarmed doctors, probably _burned_ them to death with his alchemy, the very power amplified by the watch he carried. He had some high ideal of becoming the Fuhrer, didn't he, only, here he was – a deserter – on the run from the military – and missing an _arm._ Pleading for _her_ help, too – after he had followed orders and effectively ruined a good part of her childhood. Winry started to breathe again, but a sudden bolt of rage made her throw the watch, angrily and somewhat childishly, across the room. It struck the wall with a hard clunk and Winry rose to her feet. She stormed out of the laundry room, leaving the watch, reminder of his sins, crumbled in a corner, and stomped up the stairs.

She didn't _really_ know what she had in mind, in all truth. Throttling him? Screaming at him? It seemed like carving _her_ last name into his watch was some kind of invasion of personal space, or perhaps, a mockery of her own sorrows, of her parents' deaths. It belittled it – made it seem as if her loss was merely something for him to look back upon and point to as a justification for his own thirsty ambition for power. Was that being fair to him? Perhaps not, but she didn't care. Even worse, it was _arrogant_ of him, to think that he really had _any_ understanding whatsoever of her pain, of his victims' pain, of all the pain that he had ever inflicted by following orders, and cowardice, and _alchemy_.

Winry practically kicked open the door and went right to his bedside, prepared to shake him awake. She didn't know what her plans were, really, but a kind of red mist seemed to fill her vision as she stood above him, fists clenched. Just yesterday she'd assumed that she didn't want her revenge, but _this_ was today, and here he was.

As if sensing her presence, he opened his eyes. They were dazed and groggy still, and he was weak, but Winry no longer cared.

"How _could_ you, you awful bastard?" She hissed. "How could you have just… followed orders, and not even _thought_ about what you were doing? You _killed_ them. They never did anything to you, but you _killed_ them-" She was rambling in a series of clichés, and she knew it. "-And you think your _stupid_ power trip justifies it? Do you think _anything_ could justify it? I don't want to hear your apologies, because they mean _nothing_. You could say it over and over again, but it would still mean nothing. You're a horrible, horrible coward… And you've drawn other people into that_ idiotic_ plan of yours… Ed… And Brigadier General Hughes… and Lieutenant Hawkeye… How could they _ever_ trust you? Those two even _died_ because they followed you… Why would anyone want to do that? What are _you_ worth?"

She was clutching his shirt collar now and screaming into his face, and he stared at her with one wide eye, awake now. Winry gave him a shake. It wasn't a rhetorical question, but he still refused to answer.

"…And what _ever_ gives you the right to write down our _name_ in your watch? You shouldn't even need a reminder." Winry said, and he continued to stare at her, evidentially speechless. Maybe he wasn't even lucid, still thinking of her as lieutenant Hawkeye… But no, that particular sad glaze seemed to have disappeared from his eyes, and was replaced by something raw and startlingly clear.

He swallowed; about to speak – maybe to answer her question, maybe to defend himself – but a sudden knock on the front door interrupted them both. Winry's grip on his collar loosened, and he slumped back into the pillow, and she turned towards the room's exit, alarmed. Havoc? Probably. It was probably Havoc. Winry wiped her face and refused to look at Roy Mustang, instead dashing down the stairs. She wrenched open the front door unthinkingly, preparing to tell him _everything_ –

--But, while she expected to see Havoc, blonde, blue-eyed, and with cigarette in hand, she found three unfamiliar soldiers facing her, all with hard expressions on their faces and rifles in hand. Winry stared in shock. The soldier in the middle wasted no time, holding up a typed paper up with nonsense scribbled all over it and speaking in a direct, commanding tone.

"…Ms. Rockbell, I presume? We have a warrant from Eastern for the thorough search of Rockbell Automail and its premises. I would also like to question you about your knowledge of the whereabouts of the Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric."

Speechless, Winry stared at the man. "Wh… What?"

"I suggest you step aside, Ms. Rockbell," The man said, and his 'suggestion' was more like an order. Winry lingered only for a moment, before moving away from her door. The two soldiers of lower rank stepped past their captain and into the house, leaving Winry to face the mustached, grim-faced commander. Wordlessly, they looked at one another – and it occurred to Winry how _uncomfortable_ this situation was. These soldiers could do anything to her… or…

…They would find Mustang, who was lying unwittingly in the bed upstairs.

Winry's throat tightened, as the Captain pulled out a clipboard and rapped out a question. His words went straight through her head and she blinked, coming sharply back to reality.

"Pardon me?"

"When did you last see Edward Elric, Ms. Rockbell?"

She stared at him. "...Almost four years ago…"

"Are you sure? Where was he going? Was he with his brother?"

"I don't know… He and Al disappeared… I think they left the country…"

"What about Alphonse Elric? Have you seen him since then?"

"…No. I haven't seen Al, either."

"Are the two Elrics with one another, then?"

"I don't know. I said I haven't seen them…" She did know, though… Ed had disappeared, and Al had gone after him.

…Unless, of course, the newspaper really was correct, and Ed had been spotted near the Eastern border. Why would they come back? There was nothing left in Amestris for either of them, now that Ed had achieved his goal and Al was restored.

"…I wouldn't advise that you lie to us, Ms. Rockbell. We have the authority to arrest you if we feel that you are being anything but forthcoming--"

"—I am being forthcoming. I have no clue where they are."

And what if they found the pocket watch lying crumbled in the corner, or the uniform stuffed in the laundry hamper? No, that wouldn't matter. There was enough evidence of wrongdoing slumped in the bed upstairs, dying of an infected wound and suffering through hallucinations. Winry felt her stomach twist into a knot, and tried not to let her fear show. The soldiers were searching the laundry room right now. Sure enough, one of them came out, holding the broken watch.

"Sir. I found this. A State Alchemist's pocket watch."

"Really?" The Captain took it and studied it, and Winry realized how _unofficial_ this all seemed. These men were contaminating evidence, weren't they, by putting their hands all over it… But when had Amestrian Soldiers ever followed the law on anything? Winry felt a surge of contempt flare up inside of her.

"That's Ed's watch. He left it here a long time ago."

"Really?" The Captain fiddled around with the watch, opening it. He was sharp; Winry gave him that, because his eyes narrowed in suspicion immediately. "…Why would the date 1905 be carved into his watch? The Fullmetal Alchemist didn't receive this until 1912, if I recall."

_Jerk_. Winry scowled. "It's the year his father Hohenheim disappeared."

That was a lie – it had actually been the spring of 1903, but how would they know? Winry watched the Captain's face cloud over, as if trying to remember some detail or another, before he opened the back of the watch, studying the inner workings. Winry felt a sudden pang, and realized she actually _begrudged_ the man for handling such a fine piece of craftsmanship so carelessly. Granted, hadn't she been the one to toss it against the wall five minutes ago?

"And your surname is in it, too, Miss."

"Er… I don't know why he has my name in it," Winry admitted. "Um… Maybe he…"

"A crush?"

"You said it. Not me!" Winry said, trying to appear clueless. The Captain studied the watch more closely.

"…No red stone. It's obviously not one of the newer models… Probably issued before 1916…" The man muttered. "We'll keep this for evidence. The serial number is carved along the inside, and we record who has the number of every watch we give out."

Winry felt her stomach lurch again, but only shook her head. "…I don't see what the point is. Ed's watch isn't going to help you find him."

"It's the law, little lady," The Captain replied, before turning back to his soldiers. "Continue searching."

They scoured every inch of the house, overlooking the couch and focusing instead on her automail parts. One of the men brushed an automail hand, which slid off the kitchen table and crashed into the floor with a useless _thunk_. Winry scowled.

"Watch it! Don't you know how much that's _worth?_"

The soldier gave her an uncaring sneer, and Winry's fist tightened around the wrench she almost perpetually carried in her pocket, angrily. The other soldier yanked the cupboard open and spilled a sack of flour, making a mess of her before clean floor.

"…Do you actually think Edward Elric is hiding in one of my cupboards?" Winry asked, incredulously.

"Easy, miss." The Captain said, and the utter _smarminess_ dripping from his tone was worse than anything Winry had ever heard – it made Roy Mustang at his worst sound like a saint. Even Ed would have granted him that, but Winry's contempt and bravado slowly faded as the men abandoned the kitchen and headed towards the stairs. This was it. Winry started after them, and the captain put a hand on her shoulder. She tensed, coming to an immediate stop.

"You'll just get in their way. Stay here." He ordered. Winry obeyed, knowing it would have been foolish to resist. She didn't need to get arrested… And if there was _any_ hope of getting out of this unscathed…

_I should have refused him. I should have never allowed him to come in. I shouldn't have agreed to help him. If he wasn't here…I wouldn't even have to worry…_

That was so blatantly wrong Winry almost winced. Yes – had she turned him away he probably would have died somewhere on the side of the road. And turning him away wouldn't change anything, either. It wouldn't have brought her parents back. It wouldn't have revived those who had died for him. It wouldn't have made _her_ feel any better.

…And nor would hating him.

They were in the bathroom now, judging by the sound of her footsteps. She heard the shower curtain being pushed aside and cupboards being savaged, before the footsteps proceeded down the hallway. Her bedroom was first. A closet creaked open – she'd made a note to oil the joints, but had never got around to it. A bed squeaked – they were going to look underneath, of course. Floorboards squealed, and another door opened. That was the larger bedroom, where Ed and Al had stayed when they'd came home. Another closet creaked open. The Captain looked at Winry with an arrogantly superior smirk, probably well aware how nervous she was. Winry, feeling defiant, returned his smirk with a bright, disarming smile, and the expression on his face faltered.

_Like I said before. Jerk._

They were now at the last bedroom in the hall. The door slammed open.

Winry waited.

…And waited. Nothing. A few minutes later, as her stomach tore itself into several dozen shreds and she stuffed one of her hands in her pocket to hide the shaking, the two soldiers came back downstairs, looking disgruntled.

"Nothing?" The captain betrayed his surprise with that one word, and both soldiers shook their heads. Winry attempted to _hide_ her own surprise, replacing it with anger.

"Of course there's nothing. I already told you I haven't seen Ed or Al in years."

"…Very well, Miss." The Captain said. "However… We will be taking this to Central for analysis," He said, holding up the watch. "Thank you for your time. We'll see you later, Miss."

The captain nodded, and the soldiers strutted down the front porch, looking as if their birthdays had just been cancelled. Winry stared after them in utter shock, her mind thinking in terms of miracles. Where they blind? Had they just seen her armless patient, and assumed he was someone else? Why wouldn't they…? No. There was no way that soldiers in the army wouldn't recognize Roy Mustang, his picture was plastered all over the papers almost every day. Winry watched the soldiers go for a long time, and when they disappeared around a curve in a road, marching on foot, she opened her door. The milkman had come. So had the paper boy. Winry picked up the milk and the paper and walked around the side of the house, looking all around, before walking back to the porch. Nothing.

Satisfied that the premises were secure, she started on her way up the stairs.

Roy Mustang wasn't in the bed.

Winry looked around, clueless, before her eyes caught the one detail of the room that was obviously missing. Where there should have been closet, there was an empty wall, devoid of any distinguishing features. Winry stared, as the wall began to glow with the blue light of alchemy, transmuting back into the shoddy, painted wooden door that had been there before. The door swung open and Mustang came toppling out, hitting the floor hard. He was panting, and strewn in sweat, but judging by the blood strewn on his fingers, he had used what most alchemists considered the final resort – his own blood – to draw an array and veil the shoddy closet door from view.

"…How did you…" Winry began, and she trailed off. He was shivering.

"…I mean, that was quick thinking." Winry continued, hurriedly moving to his side. "…But you're _sick_. You shouldn't even be out of…" She trailed off again. "…Jeez… That was close… If those idiots had found you…"

Winry folded her arms around his thin form and practically dragged him back into the bed. He barely seemed conscious, but was a little more lucid than before – when he looked at her, he plainly no longer saw Hawkeye, or Hughes, or paperwork, or anything that tied him to that _other_ life. Instead, he seemed worn and burdened with his sorrows once more, even though he was no healthier than he had been just hours ago. On the contrary, his use of alchemy had tired him, probably pushed him past the limits imposed by his own illness.

"…It wasn't very good…" He muttered, sounding feverish and whispering as she tucked the blankets back around him. "…If they would have hit the wall… It probably would have broken… Or if they'd even looked any closer… I had to blend the elements of the wood into the materials in the wall…but I didn't have enough strength to make it seamless…"

"I was fooled," Winry said. "…For a moment, anyway…"

He seemed on the verge of delirium again – Mustang's one eye slid shut, and he continued a muttered explanation of his alchemy. "…My specialty isn't solids… It's been a long time since I…"

"…Well, it fooled them, too. So I guess it doesn't matter." Winry studied his bandage, glad to find that he must have obtained the blood from some _other_ source. It no longer bled, anyway, but she spotted a few messy puncture wounds on the palm of his hand. Winry didn't even _want_ to know how he'd done it, but it must have been faster than finding something to actually carve or draw the array with. With a sigh, she went to the closet in the hall, retrieved the bandages, and returned to him, grabbing his hand and beginning to wrap.

"…They took your watch." She admitted, after a moment. "…I… I should have left it in your uniform pocket, but I… You probably figured out that I didn't… They said that they'll be able to match the serial number with the records to find out whose it is… They didn't believe me when I said it was Ed's."

"…It'll take a while… They'll have to look in each file…" He rasped out, his lips barely moving. Mustang looked like a dead thing – collapsed across the bed, pale, and hardly breathing, not even wincing when she smeared his new wound with iodine. He should have jumped just a little, but even though he was now lucid, Mustang seemed like he was a million miles away.

"How long, do you think?"

"…They'll have to look at the database in Central…" He murmured. "…It could be… a few weeks…"

"…What if it's not?"

He didn't respond.

Winry could think of many consequences. One, on the periphery of her thoughts, was that it would certainly clear any _murder_ charges against Edward Elric, but then, what would they think of his arm? How would they treat him, especially considering the fact that he was a deserter? Why had he run in the first place? There were so many questions, and so many answers, that Winry didn't even want to bother thinking about all the possible outcomes.

"…Listen. About earlier…" Winry finally began, after a long silence that would have been more awkward if _he_ was more conscious. "…I didn't…"

_I didn't want to say any of that to him. I didn't even_ need _to say any of that to him, because he already_ knows.

Yesterday, though, she had granted him the benefit of the doubt for refusing to listen to his apology – instead, believing that just his willingness to say it was all that she needed. Today, he returned the favor.

"…I understand." The General muttered. After a moment, he made the considerable effort of turning his head and looking at her with his one eye, his expression unreadable.

Winry looked at him, before frowning, miserably. "…Just what do we expect from one another, anyway?"

He rose his eyebrow slightly, a slow, sluggish move. "…Hmm?"

"…Nothing. Never mind."

Mustang looked at her for a long time, his expression torpid, and his face horribly pale. Finally, though, a strange tic passed over his face that might have looked like a smile, on any other face, but seemed to make him even more miserable in countenance. Was he laughing at her? The expression faded swiftly, though, and it occurred to Winry that it might have been some meager attempt at a smile. Nonetheless, it was gone in a moment, and he seemed vacant and listless once more. Winry pulled the blankets back up to his neck and, without a second thought, ran her fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face. It was, as she suspected, damp with sweat. When she rose, preparing to go downstairs (and vaguely considering having a good hard drink to calm her nerves, even if she'd never done anything like that in her life), there was another knock at the door.

All the possibilities flashed through her mind. What if they were back? What if it was someone else? What if…? But Winry steeled herself. Let them come. He was _her_ patient, and she was _not_ letting him out of her sight. Of course it was ridiculous, because what could she do against soldiers? Still, just _thinking_ that made her feel better, as if she really _did_ have some plan of action.

When she felt her most prepared, she opened the door to see Lieutenant Havoc, standing, smoking, and looking vaguely agitated. He gave her a casual kind of salute, the sort usually given to either widows of dead serviceman or at the funerals of dead officers, and put out his cigarette.

"…They already made it here, huh?" He asked.

"You _knew_ about it?"

"…'Course I knew," Havoc said, with a casual shrug. "…I couldn't warn you over the phone because the line was tapped, but I was going to try to beat them here. Guess not. They hopped the train as soon as they heard the conversation. Still, they didn't find him, did they?" Havoc said, stepping in and closing the door rather suddenly.

"Why does _everyone_ seem to think that I'm hiding Edward Elric?" Winry asked, slowly and flatly. Havoc actually had the nerve to laugh at her.

"…The boss? Who knows where he is. I was talking about the General."

Winry stared at him, blankly, as Havoc, quite unconcerned, took a look around the house. "Nice place you got here, Miss Rockbell. I've been in Risembool, but I've never really been _here_ before. You treat patients here, too, or do you just manufacture the parts these days? 'Course… I guess you _must_ be treating the General…"

"…Wait." Winry said, in a low, vicious tone. "…Do you mean to tell me that--?"

"The General made it here all right, didn't he?" Havoc suddenly asked, turning in her direction and looking alarmed. "…He was in awful shape that night… If we hadn't been so concerned about being seen, one of us would have gone with him, but instead we sent him off on his own… Breda wasn't sure that he'd make it, since he was so--"

"—He made it. But…"

"He probably doesn't remember anything about that night, anyway. We all thought he'd lost his mind." Havoc said, and Winry watched him pull out a small white bag from his coat pocket. A moment later he thrust it into her hands. "...The pharmacist was sure suspicious, Miss, about why I needed this stuff…. She didn't want to sell it to me, since I didn't have a prescription, but you can get away with a lot in East City, and I offered her a little money on the side. I was hoping my natural charm would be enough…" Havoc scowled. "Guess not… How is he?"

Winry stared at Havoc, before answering in a slightly hoarse tone. "…He needs this medicine. Badly."

"I see." Havoc said. "You can go give it to him now. Mind if I sit down on the couch over there, Miss Rockbell?"

"Um… No. But you might want to go into the kitchen instead… The couch is… It's a mess. And you can call me Winry."

Havoc seemed to take her word for it, and Winry left him, nearly running up the stairs. The medicine surely wouldn't make an immediate difference, she knew, but feeling the tangible weight of the pill bottle in her hands was almost a painful relief. She stopped by the bathroom and poured water into a little cup, before entering the bedroom. He still looked like death, but that wasn't surprising. Roy Mustang was a very, very ill man. She shook his good shoulder for a few seconds before his eye opened and studied her, slightly hazy but not _glazed_ as it had been a few hours before.

"…I've got your medicine," She said, holding up the bottle. "You're going to have to sit up for just a moment."

After his dive for the closet, he was almost utterly devoid of strength – Winry could plainly see that he wasn't even going to be able to sit up on his own, now. With an impatient but oddly good-natured sigh, she moved closer to him.

"Here. I'll help. Try not to hurt yourself."

She set the pill and the little cup down on the bed stand and helped him upright, shocked by how insubstantial he felt. Instead of skin wrapped over muscle and muscle about bones, he seemed oddly flimsy, like an inflated paper bag. It was an odd contrast with what she'd been expecting – a ponderous deadweight. Once he was sitting, she reached for the cup and pill as he lingered, trying not to lean against her. She handed him the pill first, and then the cup. Once he swallowed, Winry felt a more immediate relief; they were doing all they could do, and the medicine she'd ordered for him was the strongest on the market. The second pill was a painkiller, and he swallowed it with some difficulty. When he was done he collapsed back into the bed, and once his eye was closed and he had managed to relax, somewhat…

_Oh god… He looks like a corpse._ Stricken by the sight, Winry turned away and hurried from the room. Havoc awaited downstairs.

The moment she saw the man, sitting at the kitchen table, leaning back in the chair and appearing to be itching for a smoke, Winry felt a barrage of questions rush through her mind, none of which she could articulate. Instead, she stared at him, mentally trying to compose herself, while he waited. Finally, Winry swallowed and managed to ask exactly what she had been thinking during the entirety of the last four – nearly five - days.

"…What happened to his arm? Do you know?"

Havoc's expression, before congenial and yet slightly calculating, now became grim. "I don't know, Miss… Has he told you?"

Winry stared at him. "How could you _not_ know? You said you were the ones to-"

"Breda and I found him. We were serving under his command out in the East," Havoc offered, calmly. "…But we don't know how it happened, and when we found him…"

"Wait. _Wait_. Just start from the beginning." Winry said. "…Okay? I just need…"

"…It's a confusing story…" Havoc warned.

"I couldn't _possibly_ be any more confused than I am now." Winry snapped.

"Okay. If you insist." Havoc took a deep breath, and reached for his cigarette pack before stopping himself and letting his hands fall to the table. "…It was about seven nights ago…"

They were silent for a moment.

"…And…?"

"…The Lieutenant… I mean, Lieutenant Colonel. Did he tell you…?" Havoc asked, trailing off mid-sentence. Winry felt her insides freeze, and gave a slight nod when he looked towards her, as if searching for understanding. She knew.

It began with Riza Hawkeye's death, didn't it? She had surmised that much.

"…She… She died in his arms." Havoc said, haltingly, trying to be as vague as possible. "…And afterwards… Well, you've probably seen it. It was like everything just sort of stopped. He had to fight in the next battle, sure, but… He grieves in his own way. It's not noticeable to someone who doesn't know him well, but we could all see it. In the beginning, it was just Hawkeye, Hughes, and him. It had always been that way. And now that both of them are-"

_And at a certain point… It was just Ed, Al, and me. But that all changed, didn't it?_

"I understand." Winry said. Havoc didn't elaborate, thankfully – it was making something sharply twist inside of Winry, and she didn't like the sensation.

"But you know how that story ends. Anyway… Six days ago, there was a really intense battle… The enemy had us mostly cornered, and they had more ammo, more shells, and more tanks than we did. It should have been a route – for them, not us – but the General got directly involved, even though he's not supposed to. He used his alchemy to destroy their tanks and halt the advance, but we still lost quite a few men. If not for Mustang, it would have been quite a few more, too. After that, we retreated and kept our distance, while they kept on trying to shell us from behind their trenches. We spent the next day or so sniping back and forth… We had lost ground, and where getting close to this place…"

_The gunshots… The explosions… That night. I remember._ Winry thought.

Havoc continued, a wry look on his face. "…It was then that the Boss showed up."

The Boss. Havoc's nickname for Edward Elric. "…Ed… Was Al with him?"

"I don't know. Only a few people saw him – and a few too many, I'd say, considering it's all over the news. I'm sure you've heard the latest."

"Yes. I have."

"…It's obviously not true. Not _entirely_. But the boss – Ed – showed up, and from what I could tell, he wasn't in any mood for nonsense. There was something off about him… He didn't stick around to talk. He didn't even ask why Hawkeye wasn't with us. He went straight to the General's tent. We let him. I don't know what he was planning… A few hours later, the enemy assaulted us right in our camp. When we went to find the General in his tent, he wasn't there."

"Ed and him went somewhere?"

"I guess."

"So… After that…"

"…No one knew where he'd gone. There was no sign of him until after the battle was over… We managed to pull out a victory. They should have never attacked our camp – we were more heavily armed than they anticipated, and we had alchemists with us. But apparently someone had seen the Boss and the General heading West a bit before the battle. Breda and I decided to follow the trail, while the rest hung back… And we found him. He was alone, just lying by the side of the road…"

"…Missing his arm." Winry whispered, her mind suddenly drawing the most _horrible_ conclusions.

"Yeah. Minus one arm." Havoc said.

"...From alchemy."

"Right."

It would be easy – and perhaps foolish – to draw a conclusion, but it was so _difficult_ to just let it slip from her mind, to dismiss it as some kind of coincidence.

"And Ed was gone?"

"He was alone."

_Oh God…_

"Breda and I couldn't stay away for long without someone getting suspicious." Havoc said. "Too many people had already seen us leave. So we sent the boss west towards Risembool, where you were… I know the General, um… There are reasons why you might not have wanted to help him," Havoc admitted, "But we couldn't have just taken him back to camp. He refused… And we didn't want to force him to do anything. Breda and I tried to administer some first aid, to get the wound to stop bleeding. We tried to give him stitches, just to get it to stop… We weren't sure he was going to make it…"

Winry remained silent, chilled by all the possibilities. Havoc seemed to sense her feelings – they must have been obvious – and remained silent for a moment.

"Anyway." He continued. "I can't stay here for long, either, Miss… Ah, Winry. It's my day off, but someone's bound to miss me. You probably understand why I came… couldn't exactly ask about the General over the phone, with it being tapped and all. But I've got one more question for you," Havoc said, as they both stood up. Winry faced him, uneasily.

"…Do you know where Ed is?"

Havoc's expression was deadly earnest, and Winry knew – with a wrenching sadness – that _he_ had come to a conclusion. Of course – he would. He was just looking out for Mustang, but… on the same token…

_Why can't I defend Ed? I know he'd never, ever do something this horrible…_

And there were so many questions – had Al been with him? Why had Mustang gone away with him in the first place?

"No. I don't. But if you found him… Would you…?"

"…I'd have a few questions for him, too." Havoc studied her for a moment, and bowed slightly. "Thanks, Miss… I mean, Winry. For taking care of the General."

"…You're welcome."

"And another thing." Havoc said. "…I know this is hard on you… But the military can't find him. You've probably figured that out…"

"I have." She had come to that conclusion, too.

She watched Havoc leave, walking up the path towards a motor car in the distance, studying him from behind with a kind a numb, shallow kind of anger. She didn't know what to think… With all the evidence pointing one way, was it truly possible for there to be another explanation? Walking back up the stairs, she entered Mustang's room. He was no help.

His memories of that night, after all, were gone.

_And yet… He kept on asking me where Ed was._

After lunch, dinner, and as nine-thirty passed by, Winry saw a dark, hazy eye crack open and study her as a face rose from where it had been half-buried in the pillow. Mustang was still piteously weak and groggy, but he was conscious, now, and studying her, as she sat making adjustments on an automail foot that wasn't moving quite right. He studied her momentarily.

"Havoc already knows." Winry said.

"…You… told him?" He asked, his voice a whisper with hardly any air behind it.

"No. Don't you remember?"

"…What?"

He didn't. He didn't remember anything.

"…Nothing. Never mind. How do you feel?"

"…Pain." He admitted. "…But… it's not as bad."

"That would be the painkillers." Winry said, and her eyes moved towards his bandaged side. "…But your infection is getting worse… It's bound to get worse, before it gets better."

"…How long…?"

"…Two, maybe three weeks." Winry said. "We don't have all the time in the world, now that they have your watch…"

"Hmmm." For a while, he was silent, and she thought perhaps he had fallen into another deep, restless sleep. Outside, snowflakes were fluttering against the windows; inside it was warm, but he managed to look cold even with the blankets wrapped around his body. Winry continued to watch over him, occasionally glancing towards the side of his face and wondering if he was going to wake up _again._

He did, after a good quarter of an hour. She didn't notice this time, until he spoke.

"I owe you for this. I owe you for everything."

"I don't want anything in return." Winry said.

_It's not like I have a choice. What could _he_ give _me_, anyway?_

After a moment, she began talking, almost compulsively. "…I'm going to have to take the measurements and start working on your automail… soon, anyway. As soon as you're well, we have to install it… It's going to take a while for you to learn how to use it, and the operation itself is terrible. Even I'll admit that, and I'm an automail mechanic," Winry said, wryly. "…Most people take six months to a year to fully adjust and heal…"

"…I have a few weeks."

"Right… As soon as you get well."

"…I'll be fine." If there was any strength behind his voice, he might have sounded like his old, stubborn self. Nonetheless, Winry admired him just for the attempt, and might have even smiled, where he not so ill and pathetic before her. He still looked like he was on the verge of death, and was a long way to go before even his fever began to recede. That was, certainly, depending on the fact that he healed. There was no telling whether he would or not.

The alternative was death.

"I don't want you to die," She muttered, more by accident than by anything else. For a while, she didn't think he'd heard – hoped he hadn't – but he seemed to shift slightly, another weak, convulsive movement, and she heard his response.

"…You don't?"

"No. I don't."

"…Why not?"

"Why would I?"

"…Because of what I did…"

They were being frank with each other, and it was refreshing. With him, it was probably the fever speaking, but Winry found it easy to just be _honest_ with him, to say what she felt. She still felt that slight, cold prickle of rage inside when he mentioned it, but it was oddly dampened by the fact that Roy Mustang, for the first time, seemed almost _painfully_ remorseful.

Or maybe he was thinking about Hawkeye.

Or Hughes.

It was hard to tell, but he was shivering again.

_I wish he'd just stop torturing himself. _

What would that entail on her part, she wondered? If it meant forgiving him, it just wasn't possible. He probably knew that. He didn't seem to want pity, or mercy, either, but his pain was so raw and convincing that she couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. Winry put the automail foot down, slowly, watching him suffer and feeling a kind of helpless fury. She wasn't exactly mad at _him_.

…Though, maybe, she was a little mad at Havoc and Breda, for having sent him _here_, of all places. So she could continually be in the presence of her demons… And he could be constantly faced with his. They were really, at the heart of all things, pathetic people.

Winry leaned forwards, studying him carefully. With one hand she cautiously reached forth, and let it rest on his good shoulder. She could feel wiry muscle tense under her hand, but she continued, now sliding from her chair to the bed. Her other hand rested higher on his injured shoulder, above where the bandages was, and slowly, not even really sure of what she was doing, she lowered her forehead to rest against his back.

_I must be insane._

"…You're worth forgiving… But I can't." She muttered, quietly, not missing how warm his skin felt through the thin cotton of the sheet.

_That's just his fever…_

"…I'm sorry." She said.

His shivering slowly stilled, and his muscles relaxed, the tension ebbing out of them.

_At least we understand one another_, Winry thought, and she clung to him, trying to push everything else from her mind - _Ed_, automail, Havoc's condemning words - and linger in the moment. When she drew back – away from the odd, spur-of-the-moment embrace, he cracked open his eye and looked at her.

There was something almost _worshipful_ in his gaze.


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning: **note that the movie "Conqueror of Shamballa" doesn't exist in this AU. Also note that this chapter contains flashbacks and "mild" gore.

**Chapter Seven: Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity **

_The explosions, the gunfire, and the screams and yells of soldiers had faded into the night nearly forty-five minutes ago, leaving an eerie silence in its place. It was ridiculous to think that it was too silent. Any night without the cacophony of war was a good one – but there was still something almost painfully uncomfortable about it. _

_He should have been sleeping, too, and yet sleep continued to elude him as he lied in full uniform across the shoddy mattress inside of his tent. He was both too tired to think clearly and too tired to sleep properly – his body ached, especially the deadened area under his eye patch, victim of the cold, wet chill that had descended upon the eastern front._

_Outside, someone walked past. He rolled on his side and frowned, staring towards the side of his tent and yet not really seeing anything – no mundane little card table that sufficed as a desk, no tiny dresser, no blood-stained white gloves crumpled on the floor. Instead, his mind was filled with an indescribable buzzing. _

_He could still feel the dried blood on his hands. Whenever he moved his fingers it tugged at his skin, creating an odd prickling sensation. It was strange, and vaguely barbaric, but he just couldn't bring himself to wash the blood away, as if doing so would have given the situation _reality_, something he now planned on running from for the rest of his life. _

_Roy Mustang lied in his tent, worthlessly staring at bloodied hands. The night was silent. _

_As he finally managed to close his eyes, the tent flap swept open, and a panting, bedraggled figure stumbled in, eyes wide and burning, and his expression tortured, _haunted, _even. _

"_Colonel…"_

_He recognized that voice. Roy raised his head slowly, shocked to see none other than Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist – ragged, panting, and soaked with rain – standing in the middle of his tent. _

"…_I need your help," Ed said, his eyes wide and bloodshot and his voice strained. _

_A strange chill went down Roy's spine. It was something he never thought he'd hear from the mouth of either Elric boys, and now that he heard it, he knew there was something wrong. _

"_Fullmetal…? What do you need?" He asked, deciding to be forthright, for once. _

"_I… I don't know…" Ed began. _

"…_Did something happen to Al?" Roy said, quietly. _

_Ed said nothing, but he was still panting, still distressed, and still standing there, and looking so utterly helpless for a boy who was usually so strong. What was he, now? Almost twenty? Roy wasn't surprised to see that the Fullmetal Alchemist still wasn't any taller than his own shoulder. It was a little pitiable – without the automail, Roy had the feeling that Ed might have been much taller. _

_Roy studied Ed, seeing his state of distress, and looked at his own hands. _

"…_Colonel…" Ed began. _

"…_I understand." Roy said. He did. He understood the situation _perfectly.

"…_Let's go somewhere else and talk about this," Roy said, suddenly feeling oddly light-headed. "If any one else in camp sees you, there might be trouble. You are presumed dead, anyway…"_

_Edward Elric looked at him with those strange, dark-rimmed gold eyes of his, before nodding. For once, he agreed. He was cooperating. Instead of waiting for Roy, Ed stormed out of the tent, and the older man followed. _

"_Something did happen to Al," Roy remarked, seeing how tense Ed's shoulders were. _

_The words only aggravated Ed further, but he said nothing._

* * *

Winry waited with patience utterly unlike her, spooning oatmeal into her mouth and pretending to ignore the shambling patter of bare feet over floor boards, accompanied by occasional clatter of furniture. It wasn't _her_ problem that certain house guests were too stubborn and full of themselves to accept help, even after a three week period of bed rest that had left them almost _hopelessly_ weakened. A more sinister part of her hoped he ended up falling flat on his face.

The rational part of her mind noted that his oatmeal was going to be solid ice before he even made it to the table.

Still – it was his fault. Winry continued to spoon the sludge into her mouth, noting that even warm the oatmeal was still just _barely_ palatable, enough to choke down as long as she kept herself distracted from the stale taste and the oddly porous texture. Alternating between stirring, as if trying to beat some kind of taste out of the gray sludge, and glancing towards the entrance to the kitchen, she waited.

Finally, he appeared, pausing to lean against the door frame and catching his breath. Winry glared at him (trying, and failing, not to pity him for such a pathetic display) and waited. He continued to pant.

"Well?" She asked. "…Looks like you did a _great_ job of getting downstairs _all_ on your own. Of course, you can barely _stand_ now-"

"I made it, didn't I?" He grumbled, before stumbling to the table, wrenching the chair out, and slumping down. Winry returned to spooning her oatmeal, only casting sidelong glances at Roy Mustang as he tasted the oatmeal, grimaced mightily, and tasted it again. After another grimace, Winry practically slammed her spoon down on the table.

"You know what? _You_ cook tomorrow. All right?"

"I never said anything," He replied, pompously.

"I _saw_ that look."

"It had nothing to do with your oatmeal."

"Than what's your problem?_"_

"My shoulder hurts."

"Hasn't it been hurting for the past _month_?"

"Yes."

"So what is it? Does the oatmeal make it hurt even worse?" Winry asked, her tone bordering on sarcasm.

"…Maybe."

Winry scowled. "Fine then. Tomorrow? You can fix breakfast. You can fix lunch and dinner, too, if you're feeling up to it."

"The oatmeal would be better," Mustang began, "If I didn't have taste buds."

"Thanks for the suggestion." Winry snapped. "Just eat it, okay?"

"I'll try." He spooned at the substance unexcitedly, before his gaze strayed towards the window. Winry pointedly looked down at her oatmeal, not wanting to see his expression darken and cloud in concern – the weather this year was not on their side. It was early November now, and unnaturally cold for Risembool – a town which usually endured a short winter between January and February that faded into a rainy spring – the thermometer read at twenty below, and the window glistened with a rime of frost. Inside Rockbell automail it was cold, too – Winry wore as many layers of clothes as possible, and every fireplace in the house roared with flames that Mustang pointedly avoided looking at. The fact remained; cold air made automail twice as bad.

Roy Mustang was eating the oatmeal with a resignation that bordered on the melodramatic when Winry looked back at him, studying the man carefully.

Three weeks and five days – almost an entire month – had passed since he had arrived on her doorstep, desperate, wounded, and nearly dead in the cold of the night. Over the last few weeks since Havoc had arrived Mustang had spent the majority of his time on borderline between life and death, feverishly tossing and turning in bed and barely able to remain conscious for more than a few minutes each day while his infection raged through his body. It was only in the last three or four days that his fever had slowly vanished and the horrific red lines across his shoulder had receded and finally disappeared. His wound – the stump where his arm had been – was now clean and well on the way to healing.

And yet, even with the progress he had made, and the healing brought about by hefty doses of medicine, Roy Mustang was still not a healthy man. He was too pale and too thin, and so weak he could just _barely_ make it down the stairs and to the table. They'd already had an argument today over whether or not Winry was going to help him downstairs, and he'd won – and proved that he could make it – but the exhaustion now written plainly across his features said it all.

_...He is_ not _ready for automail._

The recommended healing time before the installation of automail was, according to both the texts and Winry's own instincts, two to three months, depending on the patient. The healing time afterwards was from anywhere from one to three years, but Mustang was being just like _Ed_ – forcing himself through at half-time, insisting that he cut his own healing time in half and demanding that she install the automail as soon as possible.

She tried to justify it, of course – Mustang didn't have to learn how to _walk_ on automail, and he was most certainly not an eleven year old boy. When they had first installed automail on Ed, the metal had weighed more than he did – but Mustang was older, his surgery was less drastic, and even in the eight years since they had given Ed automail, the technology had improved. The surgery was no less painful, but patient survival rates were higher and recovery times shorter.

Installing automail after a month was not something _greatly_ out of the realm of possibility, anyway. No one had ever done it at Rockbell Automail, and Winry knew her grandmother would _kill_ her for it – but other mechanics did install automail only a month after the original injury or amputation, though it was often cheap and temporary. The survival rates were lower, but not by much.

And yet, when she thought of it, Winry realized that the statistics and her knowledge of automail wasn't the main issue.

The problem was Mustang.

She was consciously trying to pretend a certain _moment_ had never happened – even though the details (the_ warmth of his skin, the sound of his heartbeat, and that_ look _on his face_…) were branded by searing fire into her memories - and, although, he had barely been conscious more than five minutes at a time throughout the last three weeks, but there was something _different_. Winry did not think it was anything more than a kind of mutual understanding gained between them.

_But I'm wrong._

Ever since three days ago, when he'd started to show extremely noticeable signs of improvement, they'd spent the majority of their time having forcibly civil arguments. When they were _not_ arguing the problems started. Winry's eyes would meet with his, and neither of them could hold the other's gaze. Winry now understood what it was – guilt.

Winry could not look at Roy Mustang without realizing that she was causing _him_ pain, making him remember – and he couldn't look at her without reminding Winry what he had done, what he _was_, why she should have _never_ allowed him into this house. They were caught in some kind of bizarre orbit around each other because of it, well aware that there was no way of keeping their distance and yet even _more_ aware that to come any closer to one another would only result in more suffering – and maybe even destruction for both of them.

She didn't like looking at him and knowing that, in a matter of hours, he was going to be spread across an operating table with his life in her hands.

"…How long did Fullmetal wait?" Mustang asked, after a moment, now sipping the coffee and ignoring the mostly full bowl of oatmeal in front of him.

"…Only about three months." Winry said. "…He should have waited _six_."

"…What about afterwards? How long did it take him to heal?"

"He had full range of motion in the arm after about a month, and he could walk after two months. But don't even try to be like him. It's not normal."

"I don't have to learn how to walk, though," Mustang said.

"You will have to learn how to use your fingers." Winry said. "…That's almost as difficult as walking. Your advantage is that you don't have to learn how to do both at the same time."

"Still. I can leave here as soon as I've recovered from the surgery," Mustang replied. "I don't need to stay in one place while I'm learning how to use it, do I?"

"No, of course not. Most people leave the clinic about two weeks after the surgery, and continue on rehabilitation at their own homes. Or in a hospital. They only come back for adjustments if it starts to bother them – usually after six months or so." Winry admitted. "But it depends on how well they make it through the surgery. If they're still ill going into it…"

"…It should be fine, then," Mustang said. "…I've seen other soldiers take automail only a few weeks after the surgery. I've spent nearly a month here, and I'm in better shape than some of the others I've seen…"

"…Really? How did the surgery go for them?"

Mustang shrugged one shoulder, and Winry folded her arms.

"They must have been screaming hysterically. If the flesh isn't fully healed, installing the port is just about the worst physical torture you can inflict on another human. You're aware of that, right?"

"I'm not worried," He said, somewhat flippantly.

Winry wanted to shake her head. Mustang was treating this as if it was nothing – acting like a complete arrogant _bastard_, probably thinking that if an eleven year old boy could survive an even _more_ brutal surgery, then he could take just having one automail limb installed in half the time. He hadn't been there to see, and there was no way anyone could understand that kind of pain without experiencing it themselves.

Looking at Mustang's confident expression did not reassure Winry. On the contrary, it reminded her that she was, essentially, going to _torture _him.

_Roy Mustang followed the younger man through the night, almost subconsciously listening for the sounds of battle. They came to stand by the Western road, and there they lingered – two alchemists in the night. Ed stood there, almost _trembling. _Something was wrong – something was seriously, seriously wrong. He knew the boy, and CARED about Ed enough to see that the situation was quite grim. _

**

* * *

**

"_Fullmetal?"_

"_What?" Ed asked. His voice was strangely quiet, but impatient as it usually was. _

"…_You never told me. Where did Al go?"_

_Ed said nothing. Instead he only looked at the ground, his eyes wide and almost hysterical. Al was not with him. _

"…_You were gone four years, Fullmetal… Where did you go?" Roy tried another tactic, moving closer. _

"…_You'd never understand." The other murmured, his back still turned. _

"_Was your brother with you? He disappeared, too. Most everyone thought you disappeared together after taking out the homunculi. That wasn't what happened, was it? Your brother was restored. How did you--"_

"—_it doesn't matter, Colonel." Ed said. "…Shut up. I…." But his voice cracked slightly, and Roy saw Ed's shoulders tense. _

"…_You came here to tell me something. What is it?"_

_Something was wrong – Ed only stood, shivering, and he finally put his head in his hands. Roy likened the Fullmetal Alchemist to something _broken, malfunctioning -_ but he said nothing more. It didn't matter. _

_Instead, Roy looked down at his hands again, still stained with her blood, and relived it, again, and again, feeling the odd, sinking sensation as he realized that she had _died _in his arms, in his stead, and that the entire world had turned upside down. _

_Yes. He didn't care, really, where Al – Ed's voice of reason and probably his sanity – was. Roy Mustang was thinking of Hawkeye the entire time and tracing the path of forbidden arrays in his mind._

_**

* * *

**_

Winry scowled when she dumped Roy Mustang's oatmeal down the sink – he'd eaten less than half of it. Still, she had only picked at hers, not really because of the taste but simply due to the growing unease inside of her. A gnawing uncertainty said that this was _all_ wrong, that she should have done something _more_. What, she did not know.

Roy Mustang was slumped across the couch again, a blanket around his shoulders. He had a book propped against upraised legs when she returned to the living room.

"…I didn't know you were interested in farming," She commented, glancing at the cover of his book. Aside from texts on automail, there were a few books lying around Winry's house about agriculture and farm implements, nothing she had ever bothered to read. He ignored her for a moment, before giving her an unreadable glance.

"I'm not."

"I'm surprised you're not reading about automail," Winry replied, with a shrug, as she moved towards her work station – a table she'd dragged into the living room near to his couch, right now littered with bundles of wires and a mass of solid steel that now resembled a human arm. It was built in a mirror image of his one remaining arm, and when Winry studied it she realized it might have been one of the most perfect imitations of a human limb that she had ever made.

He was giving her a strange look, and Winry understood. Despite his eagerness to have the surgery _done_ with, he was not eager to think that the metal limb sitting on Winry's work table was going to be part of his body in a day's time.

Winry sat down, and continued to work on the wires.

Automail was a more or less permanent part of its user's body. The limb itself could be removed – as Ed continually proved and reproved – but the port, where the limb attached, could only be removed surgically. And even if Ed had found a way to restore his limbs with automail, Winry was sure that there would have been a brutal scar where the port was attached, fused directly into his nervous system and forced to coexist with bone, muscle, and sinew. As fascinating as the whirring, clicking, scraping, and grinding of an artificial limb was, automail was still nothing like flesh…

…And for the first time, Winry looked at her automail – the arm she had made over the last three weeks with painstaking care, which was going to become a part of Roy Mustang's body – and felt something almost like _revulsion._ Maybe an automail was the most functional replacement for a missing limb, and maybe they were _far_ more powerful than the original limb could ever be – but flesh and blood were still better.

_I think I understand you now, Ed. Maybe I was being selfish all those years ago. _

"…General?" She asked, addressing Mustang by his title. She didn't want to call him 'Roy' – that was far too intimate.

"What?"

"You aren't going to try to restore your arm with alchemy or anything like that, are you?"

He gave her an incredulous look – before smirking, although the expression was more painful than it was sarcastic or mocking. "I'm not Fullmetal. I'm nowhere near as naïve as he was. I understand what I lost, and I know I'm not getting it back."

Winry felt something in her bristle at his somewhat pompous tone – he had adopted that irritatingly superior and almost condescending manner again, but what right did _he_ have? He didn't even remember how he had lost his arm. "…How could you understand it if you don't even know how you lost your arm in the first place?"

"…I _know_ I didn't attempt human transmutation. Losing it wasn't my mistake, and I don't have to fix it."

Winry understood what he meant – in part – but she couldn't shake her irritation. He seemed more interested in his farming text than he did in her questions, but Winry thought she heard something purposefully mocking in his tone.

"But if you don't remember, how can you _know_ that it wasn't human transmutation?"

"…That's something I would never do. Just because I'm an alchemist doesn't meant that I would… But I already told you that, didn't I?" He was trying to end the conversation.

"When you showed up on my doorstep that night, you weren't yourself. You kept on asking where Ed was, and the entire night you were begging for Brigadier General Hughes and Lieutenant Hawkeye… Do you even remember _that_? …Whenever the Lieutenant died, don't you think it's possible that you _might_ have done something--"

"—if I had attempted human transmutation, my arm probably would be the only part of me left." He said, impassively, before giving her a flat look. "…Just give it a rest. I don't know why it's easier for you to assume that I lost my arm in a transmutation."

"…I want it to make _sense_. Can't you even admit that it's a possibility, that you might have been desperate enough to--"

"—I don't remember it… So maybe anything's possible." He muttered, darkly. "But it isn't logical– there wouldn't be anything left of me. The only theories on human transmutation I know require the sacrifice of _more_ than one life, so I would be dead right now if I'd tried, no matter how desperate I was--" He stopped suddenly. "…I don't remember, anyway."

Winry froze. Maybe she was looking at this wrong. Maybe it was _all_ wrong. Feeling her insides turn to ice, as the automail wires slipped from nerveless fingers, Winry realized that Havoc and the rest were looking at it the wrong way. She stared at Mustang. He continued to read the farming text, oblivious to the sudden sick feeling that was currently lacing through _her_ entire body.

_What if his arm wasn't the only thing sacrificed?_ Winry wondered, her inner voice coming out in a strange, semi-hysterical tone in her head. Things were starting to come together in her mind, and they made too much sense.

According to Havoc, Roy Mustang had been different after losing Hawkeye – grieving in only the way that he could. Yes.

_That was his 'dark night of the soul,' or whatever he wants to call it._

Edward Elric had shown up some hours later, and together, they had wondered away from camp. When Havoc and Breda had found Mustang, Ed was nowhere to be seen, and Roy Mustang had been left on the side of the road, missing one arm.

_And when Roy Mustang arrived here, he kept on asking where Ed was, over and over again, like_ I _should have known, like_ he _should have known…_

Ed had been with him in the beginning. And by the time Roy Mustang arrived at Rockbell Automail, Edward Elric – and his arm – were gone. Why didn't Havoc and the others see it _this_ way?

…Because it made much more sense to Winry. He must have noticed the look on her face, because concern – yes, _damn_ him, concern – flickered in his single eye and he frowned at her. He was actually _concerned_.

"…Is something wrong?"

"…General." Winry said, suddenly, ignoring him. "…You also kept on asking where Ed was."

Mustang looked up at her, blankly.

"…Havoc and Breda said you were with Ed. But by the time you arrived here, he was gone. Right? You didn't know where he was?"

"…Right…" Mustang began, giving her a strange look and obviously not following her logic. Winry felt her temples ache, and her fingers were still nerveless.

"And you clearly lost your arm from alchemy. You'll admit that, won't you? I mean, the wound is too _clean_ to have been from a shell."

"…Yes… You're probably right. But I don't remember--"

Still, Winry was staring at him intently, feeling her insides begin to churn. "…You said that if you were _sure_ the transmutation would work, you'd resurrect Hawkeye. Right?"

"I did. What are you getting at?"

A slow, strange smile spread across Winry's face. It felt oddly foreign – she liked to smile, and laugh, because it made her feel good, but this smile almost hurt. "…You _thought_ of bringing her back to life. You _must_ have imagined the arrays… What would have made it possible… What you'd need to sacrifice…"

He said nothing.

"…Did you try to trade Ed for Lieutenant Hawkeye?" Winry asked, her voice coming out high and rather loud, but oddly _polite_, too _formal_ for her own good. Perhaps not – she could almost feel the accusation cut through him. She watched his face: he remained impassive for a moment, before – in an almost painfully surreal moment – something very akin to _horror_ spread across his thin features.

Oddly enough, Winry did not overreact. She hardly reacted at all, really.

"General? Is _that_ how your theory of human transmutation works? If you sacrifice one person you care about, you can bring another back to life?" Winry said, in a slow and yet still distinctly hysterical tone. He only looked at her, stricken, before he suddenly turned inward, his face becoming unreadable as he turned away from her. He wasn't refocusing on the farming book.

"As sick as it is…I once thought about sacrificing Hawkeye to bring Hughes back," Mustang said, after a moment. "…When we were standing by his grave… After his funeral…It wouldn't have worked, because there's nothing to trade for the soul… But I might not have…" He trailed off again.

She was surprised he admitted just _that_, because, in an eerie way, it was like a confession. Not even he had enough control over his emotions to hide the fact that her insinuation was terrifying him, too - because he _didn't_ remember. But did that absolve him of the sin? If he had forgotten that he had killed her parents, or forgotten the names, would that make any difference?

Why did it make her feel sick to realize that a man she had grown to care about _might_ be the reason why her childhood friend was missing, when he had been seen only twenty miles away a few weeks before?

If Roy Mustang had attempted human transmutation and lived, than the only way he could have survived was if someone else had satisfied the needs of equivalent exchange by sacrificing _their_ life.

And the only other person with Mustang on that night had been Ed.

**

* * *

**Now it was afternoon.

"What are you doing?" Winry asked, surprised to see Mustang slouched on the ground over his pathetic little bag of supplies, which had spent nearly a month sitting unused in the laundry room. He was now stuffing the tattered remains of his uniform inside, and pulling the drawstring shut – his movements were weak and clumsy, and it seemed like he was on the verge of passing out. He didn't look at her as he spoke.

"I'm going to find some other mechanic." He replied, guardedly.

"Why?" Winry asked, still feeling light-headed and strangely _calm._

"…You're not actually…" Mustang began, and Winry interrupted him.

"You're my _patient._ My personal opinion of you has _nothing_ to do with anything."

He looked at her for a moment, before turning away. "Oh."

"Oh?" Winry repeated, borderline incredulous. She was surprised – two hours had gone by since she had accused him, and she'd spent most of the time sitting on the porch – after politely excusing herself from the room. Now that she was back in the house he seemed agitated and adamant all at once, but he still hadn't came up with a denial. His admitting that he didn't remember – if that was true – seemed like a perfect defense, but it _still_ did not absolve him of guilt.

Winry didn't want to think about it. She felt like crying – she really did – for more reasons than she could ever articulate. She almost wished that she hadn't come to the conclusion, and that he hadn't reacted the way that he did. If he would have lost his temper, scoffed at her, or patiently explained some reason why it was impossible, she might have felt better. But instead, he acted…

…Frightened. Roy Mustang did not strike her as a man who was easily frightened by anything – but now that she thought of it, the only thing he really was scared of might have been himself. It had always been like that with Ed, she knew.

Roy was frightened because it made sense to _him_.

"…You should go lie down." Winry suggested. She sounded tired, and he let out a resigned sigh before stumbling back to his feet. She didn't offer any help.

Winry, instead of lingering around him for the next few hours, prepped the operating room for the surgery on the morrow, sterilizing equipment and readying the table. It had been a while since she had installed automail on anyone, but there were certain skills that never grew rusty, even with time. By now, automail was practically instinctive – Winry knew it wouldn't take much effort on her part to inflict horrible pain and metal limbs on another person.

_That is scary._

But she almost laughed, as sinister as it was.

_Maybe Roy Mustang deserves it._

Winry didn't _like_ thinking that the reason Ed was not here was because Mustang had done something _horrible_, but the man wasn't _denying_ it.

The day passed by rather quickly; Winry kept herself occupied with mundane and necessary tasks, before fixing dinner. She gave him a bowl and let him eat while sitting on the couch, and he didn't seem to mind. The soup was utterly terrible, but it occurred to Winry that maybe, without another person to eat with, it seemed even more so simply because of the lack of distractions. By the time she returned to pick up his dishes, she saw he had choked the entirety of it down. He didn't offer any compliments, but Winry almost felt insulted.

_Like he thinks choking down a bowlful of putrid soup is going to cheer me up._

She drained the rest of her soup into the sink, washed the dishes, and put out the lights in the kitchen. After checking the thermometer in the window last time – it was now almost thirty below outside – Winry headed upstairs, feeling oddly tired even though it was early. He lingered on the couch, but she hardly gave him a passing glance when she went past. The house seemed so _cold._

Winry reached her bedroom not a second too soon, and simply collapsed onto the pillow. The tears that welled up in her eyes didn't surprise her, and she let them fall – this wasn't the first time that Roy Mustang had made her cry, now was it? She half-expected him to leave during the night, and didn't care one way or the other. Yes, she had spent a good portion of the day prepping the operation room for surgery, but that didn't matter, really… She'd just leave the clean tools as they were, prepared just in case some other desperate soldier in need of automail arrived.

It felt like such an odd change of perspective. Winry now realized that she'd been hesitant to install automail simply because something in her didn't want him to leave.

…Now she just wanted to get it over with, so that the man who had killed her parents and might have been responsible for something almost equally atrocious could just _get out_ of her house. As she drifted away into a dreamless sleep, a last thought occurred to her.

_...If Ed really did lose Al… maybe he went along with it and LET Mustang._

That didn't change things.

**

* * *

**

The morning came with warmer temperatures – Winry could tell the moment she emerged from the warmth of the blankets – but snow blasted the bedroom window, turning the world outside into a dreary mix of gray and white. Bracing herself, she hurried to the closet and yanked out a sweater, before pausing – and remembering what this day required of her. The operating room usually rose to boiling temperatures after only a few hours, and Winry didn't think she needed to dress heavily today. And when she recalled the events of the day before, an eerie, hot sensation stole over her, making the need for the sweater even less. Sighing through clenched teeth, she braced herself and exited the bedroom, heading down the stairs.

To her surprise, Roy Mustang was still slumped across the couch. The weather must have been what kept him here – otherwise, if it were sunny and warm, he might have fled already. Winry barely gave him a passing glance as she moved through the living room and into the kitchen. He was stewing again, mired in guilt, with that haunted look on his face. Winry didn't see any reason to try to stop him, and instead focused on making breakfast. Today's effort was even more abysmal than the day before – instead of oatmeal she settled for cold cereal and an apple, two dishes that would have taken effort to destroy. Winry still ate mechanically, her thoughts drawn to man in the other room once more.

She didn't want to think of Mustang any more than she had to, since they were going to be spending the entire _day_ together.

The cereal slid down uncomfortably, and the apple was mushy and too _sweet_ to be enjoyable. The milk tasted slightly sour, and Winry tossed out the rest of the bottle when she was done with her meal. It would be just her luck – spend all day installing automail, and then end up with _food poisoning_ from sour milk. Wearily, she tossed her dishes into the sink and washed her hands.

There was no use feeding Mustang. Winry had seen many patients throw up on themselves on the operating table out of both from anxiety and pain– she decided that she could do without the mess today. It was going to be traumatic enough – and it wasn't as if he planned on eating anyway. Re-entering the living room, she saw that he was sitting up, looking tense and miserable. Winry studied him for a moment, assessing his situation; too thin, too pale, but the bandage around his stump of a shoulder was still clean. No blood stains, no bleeding – the wound was close to being fully healed, and close _enough_ to install an automail port. There was some color in his cheeks, too, that hadn't been there before, and it didn't look like a fever flush. Instead, she assumed it was natural, good health slowly returning to his body.

There was something to be said for his healing abilities, even if everything else about him was unsalvageable. When he raised his head and his eye met with her eyes, something hot and wrathful must have flickered through her gaze – he wilted slightly. They stared at one another for a moment, before Winry spoke.

"…Let's go upstairs. I'll explain the procedure to you once we're in the room."

He gave a nod, and with as much dignity as he could muster, Mustang rose to his feet and started after her as she made her way up the stairs. He wasn't limping or struggling as much today, either – it was almost amazing how much he was improving on a day-by-day basis, especially after a month of being near death. Winry pulled on sterile gloves, and he stood awkwardly in the room, looking around with an unreadable expression. To his credit, he didn't seem the least bit afraid – just apprehensive.

"Sit down, please," Winry motioned towards the operating table, her voice still coming out in that eerily polite manner. He obeyed, and Winry mentally braced herself (and arranged all the equipment on the table) before turning towards him.

"…This isn't going to be easy," She finally forced out, thinking how aptly it applied to their entire situation. "…Especially not for you. If your wound isn't fully healed yet, there's going to be quite a bit of blood. If there's _too_ much, we'll have to stop immediately. Understand?"

"Yes."

"…You have to be awake for the entire procedure. If you pass out, I'll have to wait for you to regain consciousness. Since I'm working with your nervous system, you have to be conscious so I'll know if I'm attaching the nerves correctly or not."

"…I understand."

"I'm going to install the port for the automail first – if you remember anything about Ed's, the port is the socket on his shoulder where his arm was attached. Your arm injury is nearly identical to his, so your port is going to be very similar. The entire surgery involves attaching wiring to your nerves, but when I install the port, I'm going to have to drill holes in the bones around your shoulder and screw the port into it. It also has to be attached to the skin. We're going to have to flip you on your stomach halfway through, so be ready for that."

Most patients blanched when they heard that part, and Mustang was no different – although his reaction came oddly late, and seemed somewhat hollow. There was an eerie, dead look in his eye, but Winry _tried_ not to study him too closely. Instead, she laid out the wires and the arm that was going to be his, explaining as she arranged her tools.

"…That's the quickest part of the surgery, but it's far from being the most painful. Depending on how many times you pass out, it'll take about an hour and a half."

Mustang looked at her for a moment, disbelief passing over his face – before he smirked slightly with a kind of sardonic, dark humor.

"After that, we have to attach the wiring to each one of your nerves. That takes about two hours. The easiest part will be activating the automail, but it's also the most painful. It requires passing an electrical current through the wiring, and it might result in burn wounds around the port after the electricity passes through the metal." She paused. His face was pale. "Understand?"

"Right."

"Having any second thoughts?" Winry asked.

_He better not be. We're_ this _far._

_...But he is my patient. I have to attend to his needs._

"No. Why would I?" He asked, and only after a moment, it occurred to her that he was being dryly sarcastic.

_I think we need an ice-breaker. _Winry couldn't think of one. The situation was alarmingly unfunny.

"After the surgery, we'll see how you're faring. If you're lucky, the swelling will be minor. If you're not lucky, we might have to remove the arm from the socket to allow the port extra room to expand. If I think, at _any_ time throughout the surgery, that your life is in danger, we're going to stop immediately."

"Will you?" He asked, still wryly sarcastic.

"I shouldn't, but I will." Winry snapped, and he turned away, still smirking in that wounded manner. She was _trying_ to be professional, like her parents would have been, but she couldn't help it. Something about him really did draw out the worst in here.

"Anyway." She continued on swiftly. "Slide back on the table. Don't bother getting comfortable, you won't even know the difference a few minutes from now."

He smirked again, but a look of surprise slid over his features when she placed leather restraints around his waist, his legs, and his other arm.

"...You'll need these," Winry said, answering the unasked question. "Otherwise you might move at the wrong time and mess things up. All right?"

After strapping him down, she attached an IV to his remaining wrist, and began readjusting her tools. He watched with a baleful expression, and Winry realized that she was actually _stalling_. Her tools didn't need to be rearranged any more than what they already were, but she was mentally composing herself, trying to believe that this would be quick. It wouldn't. But it was easier to think that way.

Sometimes, in moments of self-doubt, Winry looked at the career she had chosen and wondered if she actually _enjoyed_ torturing people.

_If I do, I'd enjoy torturing HIM._

HE watched her clip away the bandage and study his wound; it had healed quite well, actually, and she felt the slightest token of relief. It was doubtful that his bleeding would be bad enough to stop the surgery, something she had dreaded in the past few weeks – because, in reality, if a patient bled so much that they had to call off the surgery, they usually died of blood loss soon after. Winry had never had a patient die on her, but her Grandmother had, just once, and had always told Winry that no matter what the shape of the patient was, their life was in the hands of the mechanic.

_Whether I _hate _him or not, his life is in my hands._

The steady drip from the IV was the only noise in the room, and Winry put on a mask, before raising one of the tools – something that was _plainly_ a small drill. Mustang watched her and the instrument, and she almost wished she could have blindfolded him.

_If either of us were religious, we'd be praying right about_ now.

Winry put the drill down next to him. He seemed visibly relieved – now wasn't the time for that _yet_. She rubbed some salve onto his shoulder and the area around his injury.

"…This will hopefully numb the skin."

"…You're not going to numb anything else, are you?" He asked, and his tone indicated that he already knew the answer.

"No. Sorry."

She put down the small bottle of salve, and lifted the tool that resembled – and operated on the same principle – as a regular electric drill.

Even Ed had screamed at first, and, while Roy Mustang fought against it – gritting his teeth, _grinding_ them so hard Winry absurdly thought of him breaking his incisors, and then clenching his other hand so tightly that it turned completely white – he gave in and let out a hoarse, agonized yell. Five seconds of drilling went by (_and yes, those little flecks of white and red are your bones and muscle, Roy, how do you like that?_) and Mustang yelled again. Another five seconds. He fought this time, but the drill continued, and his next hoarse yell contained a series of words that would have made even a sailor blush.

_I already wish I could say that we're almost done._

An automail port had to be bolted into his shoulder. Wires had to be attached to his nerves. It usually took five hours.

Winry felt more like throwing up than she ever had at any other point during automail surgery. Mustang let out another hoarse yell and tensed himself – he was not screaming hysterically yet. Ed had somehow remained remarkably composed, even if he had screamed in pure agony a few times, but the fact that he had remained lucid was amazing enough; Mustang was almost the same. Fifteen minutes in his yells were louder and more desperate, but not prolonged, and he managed to control his senses long enough to speak.

"…H… H….How long has it been?" He forced out.

"…Just stick with this. You're doing great," Winry said, surprised by how distressed _she_ sounded.

"Oh God…" He muttered, calling the name of a deity he didn't believe in, before shouting again.

Winry kept focused, working and carefully watching him _bleed_, glad – in some way – to see that the blood flow was light, so far. Light, but by no means insubstantial – if it worsened, they were going to be in trouble. Winry continued to drill, and he continued to curse. Every muscle in his entire body was tense against the restraints, but they held him in place like iron, not allowing him an inch of movement. They'd strapped down Ed too for this part of the surgery, although she remembered him continually kicking the operating table with his one uninjured leg every time he let out a yell or a scream.

Finally, after an hour, Mustang's shouts and curses were less coherent, and more like screams.

_Yes. This is like torture._

They were not even halfway through yet; there were bolts in his flesh and bone, and metal attached to his body, but there was still more flesh to be brutalized, and more blood to be shed. Winry finished affixing another screw and pounding it in – the process made him scream sharply with each impact, because she was _hammering_ something into his body – and when she lifted the small drill again, his eye went wide right before it touched his skin.

"No… Please, no, I don't want this any more… _Stop_. I give up. I'm not Fullmetal. I can't take it. I don't--" She had never heard him more _frightened_ in her life.

"We can't stop now. We're almost halfway through," She lied, trying to sound reassuring even when bile was rising in her throat. "You're doing _great_. You haven't even passed out yet--"

"I want to pass out. I can't take this…" He whispered, helplessly.

"—Roy! Just…"

Just what? Put his mind elsewhere? Where else did he have to go? She wanted to mention that it rather _shocking_ that he was coherent enough to plead with her, because most non-Edward-Elric patients were screaming hysterically and nonstop at this point, and they continued well on through the end of the surgery. Ed hadn't because his pain was _nothing_ compared to his brother's, or so he said. Roy Mustang didn't have a brother.

What _was_ his reason for putting himself through this, anyway?

"…Just bear with me, okay? It'll be better once you're done. We're _almost_ done." _That_ was an incredible lie, even more egregious than the first. Whether he believed her – or whether he even heard her – was indeterminable.

"…Are you enjoying this?" He asked, suddenly, his voice soft and weak. Winry almost froze – the drill went inches above his skin, ready to penetrate bone again. There was just one more bolt to go until she had to turn him over, one of the parts – _one_ – that she most dreaded. If he tried to do anything _foolish_ when she undid the straps, things would go from bad to worse.

"…Roy…"

"…I know… I asked for this operation… but you want me to suffer… don't you… for taking them away?" He asked, irrationally, as he laid and bled. He didn't even seem to be aware of what he was saying, but it still struck Winry to the core.

Winry almost denied it immediately. What kind of _horrible_ person did he think she was?

…And then she realized that maybe she was a horrible person, because what if he was _right_, and oh god, did she _really_ enjoy watching him suffer? Winry didn't respond, and instead continued, knowing that he wasn't bleeding enough to stop and that he would regret this, later – if there was a later – if they stopped here. When the drilling began, he screamed, and it was one of the most _agonizing_ things she had ever heard. Winry listened to his pleading - _please stop, please stop, please stop, please, PLEASE_ – and continued.

_It gets worse. It does._

When she finished with the bolt, Winry stepped back for a moment. He let out a strained yell and turned his head sideways, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. No tears – she was _impressed_ beyond her will. Ed hadn't cried, either. He hadn't begged, but he hadn't cried. Roy Mustang was the same, probably near the breaking point and yet somehow retaining some small token of control over his emotions. He probably wasn't even doing it consciously.

She waited, for a few minutes – first five, then ten, and then fifteen – watching him. His breathing slowed a little – she didn't want him hyperventilating, because it was a rule of thumb that once a patient started, they didn't stop until they passed out or their heart rate went through the roof. But, despite his pain, he wasn't _truly_ panicking. Not yet.

"Okay. When I undo the straps, I'm going to guide you onto your stomach. Can you follow along with me, Roy?"

For a while, he did not respond – until, finally, amazingly, he managed. "Yes." His voice was weak.

She slowly undid each strap, and he remained still. When she finished, she guided the IV cart to the other side, careful not to tangle the tubes, and guided him with her hands, carefully getting him to roll onto his stomach without disrupting either the operation in process or his IV. Their progress was slow, and she mostly moved him with her own strength – his was gone – before letting him lie on his belly and strapping him in again.

"Are you ready?" She asked, after a moment.

_He is my patient. I must take care of him._

"…Yes." He murmured.

Winry began again.

More bolts. He passed out once midway through, but woke up after five minutes with a low groan, and Winry continued, concentrating and trying not to _hurry_. To hurry was to make mistakes – as much as she wanted this to be over with, for his sake, making a mistake at a critical point could have drastic effects. Finally – after carving out flesh, drilling through bone, and hammering screws into his body – he had a port.

And he was also hyperventilating.

"Roy… calm down," She said, putting her hands on his back – where he wasn't injured. She supposed the fact that her gloves had blood and _worse_ on them probably didn't make the contact reassuring, but she still pleaded with him, now, trying to get him to relax. "…You don't want to pass out again. Breathe slowly…"

_Breathe in. Breathe out_.

She remembered holding his hand through the night, and telling him the same – and hearing him snap back at her.

She also remembered being able to distract him from his pain – by talking about Ed, the one subject that they both had some experience with, and it occurred to her that the memory would have been almost _fond_, it wasn't so tainted now. They _both_ believed that he had killed Ed, and that was probably on his mind already.

Mustang's lips were moving, his words coming out in a hoarse, barely coherent whisper. Winry leaned down closer to him, trying to discern his words – and when she heard what he said - she froze immediately, widening her eyes.

"…I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"

Winry would have much rather _not_ heard. She didn't even want to think about who he might have been apologizing to, or what he was _thinking_ right now. Instead she began prepping for the next part of the surgery – and it was even _worse_ – attaching each wire to his nerves and making sure that they worked. If they were working, it meant pain, and that was the hallmark of automail surgery.

As she arranged the wires, nervously, she watched Mustang – and it was _very_ plain that he was falling apart swiftly. He was thinking about _them_ – Brigadier General Hughes, Lieutenant Hawkeye, and probably Ed – because, once again, even though he didn't remember, Winry had accused _him_ of killing Ed. If Mustang fell apart, Winry doubted _she'd_ remain composed, either. Ed's strength throughout the entire operation, eight years ago, and her grandmother's presence, had helped keep her feelings in check back then. With all her other patients, there was only a little bit of emotional attachment. With Mustang? The stakes had never been higher.

_I am_ way _too involved in this. I shouldn't care so much. I shouldn't be operating on someone that I have such strong opinions about. This is like a recipe for disaster. This is stupid. This…_

He let out a choking sob, and began apologizing again, hysterically.

_He really is falling apart. I guess he can't be strong all the time._

And then, it occurred to Winry.

_He is apologizing. What if I did forgive him?_

The thought hit her brain like a landslide, and brought other equally blasphemous thoughts with it.

_What if I_ did _forgive him for killing my parents? Would the world end? Would it really make a difference? If he hadn't killed them, wouldn't they have assigned someone else to do it, anyway?_

And then, there was Ed.

_It seems like it makes sense. He doesn't remember, so he can't deny it, and he won't. There might be proof, but I don't even know that Ed's dead… _

What else had Mustang said back when he'd been lying on the couch in the living room?

"_He's still alive… I know he is."_

Had he said that with no basis? Or did he know something? If he really didn't remember anything past leaving camp with Ed, then perhaps his words were meaningless, just some pathetic attempt at reassuring her. But perhaps not – maybe he did know.

Maybe Winry just needed _some_ reason to hate him, now that she no longer hated him for killing her parents.

_Really. What is the worst that could happen…? If I just_ let go _and forgive him? My parents can't hate me. They might even agree. I can't hate him._

_What is the absolute_ worst _that could happen?_

She might possibly fall in love with him, but it was too late. That had already happened – and that was why she hadn't turned him away, or betrayed him to the soldiers, or chased him out, or quite possibly just _refused_ to even look at him. It wasn't the first time she had fallen in love with an alchemist who had arrived at her door pathetically mangled and in need of her help.

He moaned suddenly - this was the wrong time to be having an epiphany. Winry reined her emotions back under control and managed to speak beyond the lump in her throat.

"I'm going to start attaching the wires to your nerves, now. We're almost done."

She'd said that an hour ago, but it was quite remarkable to watch as he suddenly steeled himself, gritting his teeth and sucking in a deep breath. He wasn't going to fall apart, either – maybe he'd come to some conclusion of his own.

When she attached the first wire, he let out a scream that was two parts pain and two parts surprise. At the next wire, he controlled himself, but ended up jerking so violently that the entire operating table vibrated, rattling the parts lying about on the metal surface. Winry continued to work, gritting her teeth and forging ahead. Another nerve. Another shout, another jerk. Soon she was in a rhythm, and he grew tense before each connection, anticipating the pain. She knew his anticipation didn't lessen the agony, but at the point when most people would have been screaming and crying like babies, and when Ed had vehemently sworn that his pain was "nothing", Mustang only swore and groaned in pain whenever she attached a nerve.

"We're almost done," Winry said after threading and attaching dozens upon dozens of wires, and it was true for the first time. He only responded with another sharp curse when she attached a wire, jerking against the restraints but not managing to break loose. Winry attached a final wire and moved back momentarily, quickly checking all the necessary parts. Attached to the port was an arm, and while it was not yet entirely bolted together, it was ready to be attached to his nervous system. Winry leaned over him.

"…Are you ready? I'm going to count down. Once I reach zero, I'll activate your arm with the electrical current. Okay?"

"…Okay." He choked.

Winry watched him brace himself – the wiry muscles in his back tensing again – and counted out loud. "Three. Two. One… ZERO!"

"ARGHHHHHHHH!" He let out a choking half-scream, as blue crackling light leapt from wire to wire, and Winry swiftly began to detach him from the table – undoing his bonds, wiping blood away, and removing the IV. Mustang let out another agonized yell, but Winry forcibly rolled him on his back.

"…We're going to your bedroom," She ordered. "It's right across the way. I'll help you, all right?"

Winry would have given just about _anything_ for someone else to be present right now – a big, strong hulk like Armstrong, preferably, who could have just carried Mustang into the other room – but it was only her, and what little strength Mustang had left. She wrapped her arms around him and practically dragged him along, careful not to come into contact with his automail – it was now held in a sling, just for the moment – and they stumbled across the hall. The bed, already turned down and ready for an occupant, creaked under Mustang's weight as she _somehow_ managed to pivot him around so that he fell harmlessly onto his back, taking most of the fall on his uninjured side. There, he laid – eyes closed, mouth open – and Winry saw a thin trickle of blood trail down from the corner of his mouth as he laid, chest heaving, his entire body tense with pain. Winry panicked – there _shouldn't_ have been blood coming from his mouth.

"Roy. Why are you bleeding from-?"

His lips moved, but no sound came out. Winry moved down next to him, practically putting her ear to his mouth.

"…bit my tongue." She caught the end of his sentence, and sighed in relief.

"…Oh. You didn't bite it off or anything, did you?"

"…no." He murmured, weakly.

Outside, it was dark – the surgery had taken the entirety of Risembool's daylight – and it was dark in the bedroom, too. Winry lingered for a moment, studying him closely. His skin was already puffy and swelling, but not drastically. He was still conscious, too – the pain on his face indicated as much. Still, the painkillers she'd administered right before the end were taking the edge off – he was conscious, but it was doubtful that he would even remember anything happening now when the morning came.

He was speaking again.

"What?" Winry leaned down, as he repeated himself in a weak, barely discernible whisper.

"…How'd it go?"

"…Great. You didn't bleed much, and the swelling isn't bad… You were great, too…"

"…Was I screaming?"

"…A little." Not surprisingly, he didn't remember. He probably didn't even remember pleading with her to stop or his strange accusation, either.

For a moment, they were both silent – Winry carefully moved the blankets to cover as much of him as she could without coming into contact with the automail or the area around the port, and he lingered, silently...

"…Winry." Her name came out of his mouth suddenly, slurred and hoarse, as his one eye came open and miserably focused on her.

"You shouldn't try to talk," Winry reprimanded. "…Just try not to move or concentrate on anything… The painkillers will probably help you fall asleep in a few hours."

"…No… I… I remember now… And…"

She froze. He _remembered_.

"…I didn't…" He muttered, but it was obvious he didn't have the strength to explain. "…I didn't… He is still…"

_No. I know._ Winry thought, and then… she decided to say it out loud, to _not_ hide what she was thinking.

"I know – you don't have to say. Ed is still alive, isn't he? You said that before."

Something like relief spread over his face – bizarre, _contradictory_ even, giving all that she knew about the pain he was going through right now.

"…I shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion. It might seem like it makes sense, but I _know_ it's not true."

He said nothing, although the look of relief faded into a more suitable expression – agony, sorrow, and discomfort. Winry was sitting at his side in the bed, and she unwittingly reached out, taking his hand. He probably didn't even notice – It was hard to tell whether or not he was conscious right now.

The entire day had led to this. She had tortured him, and he had suffered at her hands. It was strange, sick, and bizarre in more ways than one, that they were able to pass so much suffering between one another. Winry decided abruptly that it would end here.

"Roy."

No response. She leaned down slightly, carefully studying his features. Running her hands through his hair, pushing it back from his sweat-strewn forehead.

"…I forgive you."

He was unconscious.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: Pluto the Renewer**

As the light of morning edged through the curtains, Winry removed the sling and studied her handiwork carefully. The automail affixed to _this_ patient was probably the best she had ever made – light but durable, with minimal friction between the moving joints, and almost perfectly wired. It had taken her the better part of the last few days to put the finishing touches on the limb, but in reality, it was the culmination of years of work and dedication.

It was odd, then, to think that _Roy Mustang_, of all the people in the world, was the recipient of what Winry considered to be her best work. His condition drew her attention away from the automail, and she studied him, concerned. He was ashen pale, and there was extensive swelling all around the port – but it was nothing out of the norm. Under her palm, his forehead felt only slightly warm – and he seemed to have fallen into a peaceful sleep. Part of that peace, she knew, was attributed to _massive_ dosages of painkillers.

The operation was done. Roy Mustang was going to heal and move on his way.

Winry scoffed – or tried even though the sound did not come out – and readjusted the blankets, pulling them up to his chest, before turning and leaving him to rest in the darkness.

_Good. He's been here for nearly a month… Leaving bloodstains all over my furniture… Insulting my cooking… Acting like the pompous, pathetic bastard that he is…_

She stumbled on her way out of the room, tripping and nearly falling flat on her face. Just barely managing to regain her balance before taking the plunge, Winry forcibly lingered in the doorway, feeling idiotic even though she knew there was no one else around to _witness_ her apparent moment of clumsiness. No one – Roy Mustang was still unconscious, and would be for the majority of the day. If he woke up groggy and drugged in the afternoon, it meant things were going well. If he woke up screaming by midmorning, that was a cause for concern – she decidedly shoved the door halfway shut behind her, and stumbled down the stairs.

_It'll be quieter around here once he's gone. What if it's too quiet? Maybe I should get another dog. _

Den had died two springs ago, finally succumbing to old age. Winry moved into her kitchen and spent a few moments _missing_ him with an almost absurd depth of emotion and pouring cereal at the same time, realizing that yesterday must have unhinged her in some fundamental way; she felt like she was moving through a cloud, and while it could have just been sleep deprivation, she was wise enough to know that there was probably something _else_ wrong, too.

_It's Roy Mustang. It is_ always _Roy Mustang._

Outside Risembool was frigidly cold and peaceful all at once – snow fluttered down in gentle ribbons from the sky, frost once again drew spider-webs along the windows, and the thermometer read well below freezing. Inside the house, by comparison, was a blazing inferno – Winry decided that Mustang needed to wait a little while before he encountered the aching pain of an automail port freezing and beginning to contract from the horrible winter cold. Ed had never complained, and nor would Mustang, but Winry knew for a fact that it _did_ hurt.

_But Roy Mustang is _big jerk_, and he deserves it._

Yes. A big jerk.

And that was it.

Winry sat back and unfolded the paper that she had retrieved from the icy cold snow, and skimmed through the headlines with a yawn. There was nothing interesting this time – no accusations that tried to pin her childhood friends as murderers, no old acquaintances proclaimed dead, just a bit of local news about a two-headed calf with only one head and something about the General Store's hours changing. She didn't know why, but she was expecting something groundbreaking.

_Maybe I'm just being melodramatic._

Maybe it was simpler; she was looking for a distraction. Winry did not want to think about yesterday, or the month before that, or events that had transpired _nearly_ fifteen years ago on one sunny morning in summer, when she had heard the news - _I'm sorry, Mrs. Rockbell,_ they'd said to her Grandmother, _but your son and daughter-in-law died in the line of duty_ – and she definitely did not want to worry that her parents, wherever they were now, _hated_ her for this.

_What would they think if they knew how I felt about the man who_ killed _them_?

Honestly… she had to admit, as strange and callous as it sounded, that she didn't really _care_ what they would think.

She really couldn't remember much about her parents, other than their faces, and the sound of their voices, but even _those_ memories were starting to fade away. They lacked color, the sound was distorted, and Winry had little doubt that, in perhaps five years time, even those memories would disappear.

She had been _seven_ that year. And somehow, she believed that the one person left on the earth with the clearest memory of her parents was none other than the man that had killed them.

Winry abruptly put the paper down, after realizing she was staring at the weather report and yet not _really_ seeing it at all. She rose to her feet and moved towards where automail parts were strewn across the living room – and unable to avoid giving that damn _couch_ an expectant glance – Winry plopped down and began working on the wiring for a leg. Another big shipment to the East was due in a matter of days. She still had a _life_ to lead, oddly enough, one that didn't involve waiting on handicapped alchemists.

**

* * *

**

Mid-afternoon rolled around, announcing its presence as another fierce winter storm bore down out of the North and sent an icy draft sweeping down into the chimney, extinguishing the fire. Winry slammed down a metal foot and brandished her wrench in frustration, directing her ire at both the window and the fireplace before lurching to her feet. No use trying to relight the chimney – the drafts continued to rattle the logs persuasively, sending up small plumes of ash. The house creaked in the wind; a shutter on the outside slammed shut, and the shingles started to flap.

"The weather's awful this year," Winry pointed out, to no one in particular.

_Talking to myself, too. I've gone crazy._

The entire _house_ creaked again, and Winry felt a chill lace straight up her spine. This storm wasn't fooling around at all – no, this was warfare raged with unholy fury, and Winry almost imagined the entire roof of Rockbell automail taking flight in the wind. _Almost_. She wasn't afraid of storms by any means, but this one meant business.

_I half expect it to blow another Alchemist onto my doorstep. Like all storms seem to do around here_.

Winry edged open his bedroom door moments later, after scurrying up the stairs with wrench in tow and a lantern. There was no hope for electricity - it was gone already, and probably wouldn't be back until long after the storm abated. When the door was open it cast a glow into his room, and she saw his one eye turn wearily towards her – he was awake and flat on his back, his expression pained but aware, and his single eye glazed with agony.

"…Does it hurt now?" Winry asked, knowing the answer. She didn't wait for it, either. "The painkillers are probably starting to wear off."

He closed his single eye for a moment, as Winry came to sit at his bedside. She continued to talk, her voice coming out calm, and measured. He only lingered, face expressionless, although she knew he was listening.

"…Just try to stay under the blankets, even if you're too hot. If your automail gets cold, it'll hurt _way_ more than it does now. Does it feel cold?"

His reaction indicated that he was _trying_ not to think of the hulking metal appendage on the right side of his body, probably even pretending it wasn't _there_ – a brief flicker of disgust passed over his features – before he reached over with his uninjured hand and slid his fingers along the surface.

"It's slightly cool." He murmured, and after a second, a slight frown spread over his face. "I tried to move it… I can only manage to make the fingers twitch… Just a little…"

"You idiot," Winry sighed, in exasperation. "Didn't I tell you earlier _not_ to try to move it around? You could start the bleeding again. I bet the swelling hasn't even gone down yet. It takes almost a week for most patients before they even--"

"I'm not 'most patients,'" Roy Mustang said, and he sounded like a very, _very_ ill man making a decidedly lackluster attempt at sounding confident and cocky. "…I have to be gone in a week."

"If you're just trying to avoid the military, Havoc already took care of everything. He swapped the registration records for your watch, and--"

"No. I'm going back."

Winry froze. " _What_?"

"…I'm going back to the fronts."

_Did I miss something?_

"I thought you _deserted_ the military."

"No." Roy shook his head slightly. "…It was just… a vacation."

"A vacation. Some vacation. Must have been _real_ relaxing for you."

"…I'll tell them… I was captured, or… I could tell them anything, actually. They're so desperate… They'll believe whatever asinine excuse I can come up with…" Mustang paused, his single eye focusing on her with that strange intensity (which reminded her of Ed) and his expression darkening.

"So you thought… I was running away? Would you still have treated me, even if you knew I was just going back to the military?"

"Yes! Why wouldn't I?" Winry asked, astounded.

"…I thought you hated the military."

"I do," She answered, candidly. "But I'm actually glad. I was planning on giving it to you half price, but now that I know you're just going back to the battlefield, I think I'll charge you double. I don't do favors for the state for cheap, you know."

Something passed over his face – and it might have been a trace of a smirk. "...Did you make Fullmetal pay full price?"

"YES! He broke whatever we gave him, of course I charged him for it! We couldn't just _give_ these things to him… This much solid steel isn't exactly _cheap-" _She said, tapping his metal upper-arm lightly.

"Well… I'm _not_ him… I don't plan on transmuting it into a blade and waving it around like he always did…"

"He did _what_?" Winry asked, bristling. "…So is _that_ how he always kept on _breaking_ it?" She let out a weary, exasperated sigh. "No wonder. I spend _hours_ working on the delicate balance of wiring, metals, and synthetic muscles and joints and _he_ goes around transmuting it into _weapons_. I bet he made _all_ sorts of crude things out of it – guns and swords and knives and-"

She had suspected it, of course – and knew Ed had done it to _survive_, but one of Roy Mustang's favorite subjects, she discovered, was mocking the Fullmetal Alchemist. It was one of her favorite pastimes, too, and it reminded her of _another_ stormy night.

_That must have been it. He was determined to live through it, but he was in so much pain… I stayed with him the entire night… It was then._

"—He probably would have died about a dozen times if not for his arm and his leg, though." Mustang said.

Winry paused, surprised by the man's sudden change in demeanor, before sighing softly.

"…I know… All those years I thought he didn't appreciate them at all, but I know better, now. He was just…couldn't say something like that. It was just Ed's way, I guess." Winry paused. "…He was a lot like you."

Mustang scoffed weakly. "Please."

"No, really! You're both Alchemists…"

"…So are _many_ other people, not just Fullmetal and I--"

"—You're both in the military--"

"—Along with a thousand other alchemists--"

"—And you're both stubborn. You're both _jerks_, and you're both _impossible_. Absolutely _impossible._ And over-confident. And a little arrogant, too. But…Both of you are also…"

"…You miss him."

_Did he just totally miss the point?_ Winry wondered.

"…Yes…I do. I miss him and Al."

Mustang looked at her intently, before refocusing on the ceiling. "…He'd do anything for his younger brother…"

That sounded like a warning. Winry felt a chill – Mustang's expression was strange, and she was thinking of _that_ night. Ed, who had been without Al… Mustang, who had been without Hawkeye… Two powerful alchemists, both missing the one thing that probably kept them from insanity…

"…General…" Winry began, and he continued, still looking up at the ceiling as he spoke.

"…Listen… Ms. Rockbell…"

"Just call me Winry," She said, almost vaguely exasperated. She had spent a _month_ feeding him and yelling at him and had drilled _holes_ in his bones and attached electrical wires to his _nerves_ – there was really no need for any kind of formality between them.

"…You can call me Roy, then," He replied, off-handedly. "But… About that night… When I lost my arm…"

Winry swallowed, and bit her lip nervously. He was going to tell her – he was _finally_ willing to tell her. And yet?

She didn't really need to hear it, because the look on his face said it all.

_I was right. He remembers now, and I was _right.

_Oh god…I wanted to be right a month ago because I thought it would prove a point, but now…_

"No." Winry cut him off. "…Just answer two questions for me."

Roy paused, and looked at her, his dark eye slightly widened.

"…Where was Ed?"

He looked at her with a gaze that was utterly fathomless… Before, finally, he looked back towards the ceiling. "…I thought about… Trying to sacrifice him… I did. But…"

"But you didn't try anything like that, did you?"

"…No. I-"

"Is he alive?"

"…Yes. But--"

"That's all I need to know. You don't have to tell me about the rest." The logistics – the exact events of that night – where nothing Winry wanted to know and nothing _he_ really needed to say. Instead they both _had_ to move on and _try_ to forget and forgive, even if it wasn't always entirely possibly. Winry watched Roy, as he stared at the ceiling and seemed to ponder the designs in the paint, before he suddenly closed his eye.

"…She died in my arms," He said, as if it explained everything.

The idiot. Nonetheless, as much as he fought against it – so hard that he had practically stopped breathing – there was something damp on his face. Winry amended her earlier thoughts - _yes, he can't be strong all the time – but he sure_ tries _to be._

The _idiot_.

Winry slid her hand under the blankets and found his remaining left hand – and, after _forcibly_ prying it away from the automail port where the swelling was – she clutched it in hers with the strongest grip possible. Mustang's expression did not change, and his voice was amazingly flat.

"…It's too hot in this room." He murmured As if _sweat_ could account for all the dampness on his face.

"…She's worth it, don't you think?" Winry asked, almost – _almost_ – daring to be sardonic when confronted with his ever-so-obvious display of emotion – until she realized how much it was affecting her, too.

_He's even_ worse _than Ed._

At least Roy was trying now – shedding tears for his first lieutenant, and maybe just for himself, too.

Winry pretended to ignore him for a moment, although she knew that her fingers tightening around his gave the act away.

**

* * *

**

After one stormy night and six days of sunny clear weather, Winry groggily awoke – mumbling, rubbing at the imprint her wrench had made in her face – to hear the sound of the front door of the house _opening_. Alarmed by the sound – thinking that it was the military, or Havoc, or maybe even _Ed_ – she jerked out of bed immediately, fumbling about for clothing and slippers in a rush and practically falling to her knees. The wrench clunked against the floorboards and she nearly twisted her ankle on the way to the closet, before stampeding down the stairs.

There was plainly no one in the house – Rockbell Automail felt silent, and empty. A raw, sudden rush of panic sent Winry racing back up the stairs and kicking open his door.

_That idiot, he wouldn't just… He wouldn't…_

But he _had_. Roy Mustang was not in his bed. Winry slammed her fist against the doorframe (the old decaying wood gave, but not before splintering and causing several sharp, stabbing little prickles of pain) and whirled around, donning her coat from the upstairs closet before nearly _flying_ down the stairs, in slippers and mismatched clothes, nearly panicking.

_That stupid_ idiot, _Why would he just…_

"ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH!" A nearly bestial roar escaped Winry's mouth when she saw that _his_ cloak was gone from where it had been crumbled in the entry way for over a _month_. She had washed it, of course, secretively, and tossed it back where it had been, but she had also wanted to make an attempt at sewing it for him before his departure. But that was the least of her concerns.

_I_ hate _Roy Mustang. I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him_ –

She kicked open the door and moved down the steps, stumbling. There was no one as far as she could see, but it had only been a few minutes, and he was probably just over the crest of the hill.

_I hate him I hate him I hate him_

His recovery was going well, or as well as it could – he still wore a sling around his automail to help his wounded shoulder support the weight, and there were bandages about the port, keeping the bleeding to a minimum. He had learned to change the bandages on his own, and was currently on a heftily prescribed dose of painkillers that made his days (and nights) more bearable, too. Best of all, he could already move his hand just a little bit – it might take months, maybe even a year – but he _would_ have full range of motion in his automail, once the swelling went down. She had already came _perilously_ close to hitting him over the head with her wrench for trying to move the entire arm several times, _before_ it was properly healed, but inwardly she was impressed that he was healing so swiftly.

_I still hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate hate hate hate Roy Mustang for leaving and being a bastard and_-

Winry dashed along the lane, carefully avoiding snowdrifts and aware that her slippers were going to be _ruined_. How stupid, she was, for rushing after an _idiot_ through the snow and ice when she knew it would probably be better to just _let_ him go. But her sprint continued, and she saw no trace of him… Past the graveyard… To the train station…

She stumbled, pitching forward from the momentum as she tried to come to an abrupt, complete stop. The graveyard, on a hill overlooking the river valley below, was small and homely, but _not_ uninhabited. To her great shock, someone was standing and looking at one of the graves.

Even from afar, she recognized the eye patch, the hair, the sling... Winry stared for a good minute, before storming towards the graveyard, carefully avoiding the deeper snow drifts and aware that she was probably unlucky to get _frostbite_ or hypothermia by running out here after _him._ He hadn't yet noticed her presence.

He didn't have his little sack of belongings with him, and Winry realized she'd probably jumped to an unfair conclusion – he'd said _seven_ days and this was only six. He really was a man of his word – when he chose to be – and now it seemed like this had all been one big _irritating_ false alarm. Winry moodily stormed up to him, and paused.

She didn't need to look – the graveyard was _intimately_ familiar to her – because she already knew where he was standing. Had someone _told_ her that Roy Mustang was going to the graveyard, she could have _guessed_ that he would be standing there – right above her parent's graves.

He was quiet, unmoving. Winry didn't know if he was aware of her presence or not, but she found herself _fascinated_ by the expression on his face. It was like he was having some kind of staring match with the gravestone – his single eye was narrowed, his mouth was drawn in a thin line, and he appeared to be in pain.

_Of course_ the idiot was in pain. The cold was probably freezing his automail and half freezing _him_ to death, although Winry knew - instinctively - that wasn't the only explanation. No, problems with Roy Mustang – or any alchemist, in Winry's experience – were never quite that easy. She watched, until finally, the expression on his face lightened and some of the intensity faded. Now he was just looking at the grave stone sedately, with the more usual Roy Mustang expression. Distant, searching, vaguely confident, composed and maybe even a little bored…

_Did he_ apologize?

No. Winry didn't think so. They both knew that it was _far_ too late in the game for apologies to mean anything. Was he just here to torture himself? Winry didn't think that was out of the realm of possibility. She frowned, before finally trudging up to him through the dark and cold. He didn't look up as she neared – he, of course, had probably sensed her presence all along, smelled her out like the dog he was – but he did speak, in a low tone.

"…1907. It's been a long time." He commented.

_What does that have to do with anything?_ Winry wondered – although she saw that he looked uncomfortable, and was probably just making an attempt at small talk. Roy Mustang seemed quite unsuited to it, though, and quickly gave it up. Instead, he looked at her with that burning gaze of his, and waited.

"…I thought you'd left or something." Winry finally said. "You could have at least told me that you were stepping out."

He shrugged his good shoulder. "I figured you'd get mad."

"I'm _not_ mad."

His eye dropped, focusing on her wrench – she was holding it at her side and squeezing so tightly that her knuckles had lost their color. Winry flushed and stuffed it back in her pocket, and a slight smirk spread over his features. Her eyes moved towards the gravestones – and she saw his smirk immediately fade, as he was abruptly reminded of their situation. Instead of saying anything, Winry came to stand besides Roy Mustang, and together, they looked at the graves.

He had that strangely intent look on his face again, Winry saw, giving him a sidelong glance. He said nothing, and didn't move his gaze away from the graves.

For a while, they just stood – breath chilling when it hit the cold, cold air, and Winry closer to him than she would have ever liked to have admitted. She was thinking – oddly – in terms of the future. Someday, perhaps, she'd stand here with a husband or a fiancée, probably in the spring time, and when he _asked_ she would explain how she had lost her parents. He would then give her one of those sad _vapid_ looks and maybe say a few meaningless words (an apology, for instance), and she would immediately feel awkward and have to change the subject. With Roy Mustang, there was just standing, staring, and _understanding._

Whether she wanted to admit it or not.

After a moment, Winry let out a shuddering breath – it was too _cold_ out here, and he had to be feeling it even more acutely than her.

"We should go back."

"…Right."

Neither of them moved.

_If my parents really were watching…_ She began, but trailed off. They weren't. They were dead and gone, and the dead did not bother themselves with the affairs of the living. She had came to this gravestone many times with the idea of paying homage to her parents, but now a strange little idea seeded itself in her mind, and began to grow with each passing moment.

_Pretend for a moment that they_ can _see me,_ Winry thought. _They can see that I've grown. They can see that I'm no longer a little girl who cries for them every night. They can see…_

Him. Winry first thought that maybe, if they _could_ see, they'd believe she was mocking them, by dragging that same pathetic young soldier who had _committed_ the crime back to them, but on second thought, she knew her parents. Roy Mustang had came of his own accord, something that took obvious courage – and the fact that he still dared to stand here, with her at his side, spoke strongly of his character now.

Winry lingered by his side for a moment longer, before turning. She accidentally brushed against him, and it probably jarred his automail in an uncomfortable manner.

And now they were looking at one another. He had that same expression on his face as he had when he'd been looking at their grave, and now Winry recognized it – he trying to reconcile _something_ inside, trying to ask her something… Looking to her for _permission_, out of all the bizarre things in the world… And when Winry didn't move he stepped closer – it was not altogether graceful, as he was obviously still weak from his surgery, the painkillers coursing through his blood, and the automail limb weighing down his right shoulder. His hand went to her shoulder – the real hand – and he studied her with a cocked head.

His look changed - and Winry recognized _this_ expression, too. This one said that he was in familiar territory, that he had performed _this_ act dozens of times. Winry narrowed her eyes – she had heard Ed grouse about the Colonel's alchemic code, how he described countless liaisons with seemingly hundreds of women (real or imagined) in that code, with all the grim, superfluous details…

But the look faded when he suddenly seemed to realize just _who_ she was, and where he was. Roy Mustang almost _visibly_ wilted right in front of her.

_...He really is an idiot._

For a moment, all she could focus on was the fact that, when leaning forward and grabbing his collar, she had practically slammed her forehead against his nose – but when she tilted her head forward and he bent slightly, the thought vanished immediately.

_This is weird._

It was. His lips were warm and so was the rest of him – maybe he had a fever _now_ - and they were altogether _too_ close. She could feel his heartbeat, his breathing, and the jarringly cold surface of his automail even through layers of clothing… But the contrast was not altogether unpleasant, instead serving as a reminder of all that had transpired to bring them here. Her eyes were closed, but the vision of him – the almost endearing surprise, followed by an even _more_ endearing look of confidence - _because he was Roy Mustang, and Roy Mustang drew women towards him with magnetic charm and good looks wherever he went_ – as she had pulled him close was burned into her mind. Because of the cold, everything else except her lips and fingertips felt numb.

_This is really, really weird._

They were standing not five feet away from her parents' graves.

That thought was jarring just like the cold of his automail, only worse – almost bad enough to make her shove away from him. But when she thought of her parents' grave, of his automail, of the black patch that covered half his face, of all the scars scattered across his spare frame, of the nights she had spent crying for them, and that _one_ night when the storm had blown him onto her porch…

_Both of us have sacrificed entirely too much for this moment. Let's make it last._

It didn't – not for long. He drew back, and gave her an utterly unreadable look. She met his gaze, evenly, aware that her cheeks were probably a deep, deep shade of red.

"…We're both going to die of hypothermia." Winry finally said, grumpily. "…My feet are cold, and your arm is probably ready to freeze out of its socket. Let's go back."

As they trudged through snow and across the lane, back towards Rockbell Automail, Winry decided, for the moment, to let everything else go and just _not think_, because thinking was painful when she knew that, in a day's time, remembering _this_ moment and all that had just happened would only cause even more pain.

**

* * *

**

Winry slept fitfully through the night, but she didn't bother checking in on him – usually around midnight she rose and went to examine his bandages, if only to make sure he hadn't rolled into a position that would have put unneeded pressure on his automail. He hadn't the last several nights, though, and Winry doubted he would now – he probably wasn't sleeping either. When morning came, the bed in the other room creaked, and she let out a sigh.

He was going to leave at the crack of dawn. With an irritated scowl (_why doesn't he just wait until after lunch?_) Winry jerked out of bed and stumbled to the closet. She paid little attention to clothing, but somehow managed to make sure everything matched, before – with a yawn and some much needed grumbling – she headed down the stairs.

Mustang was in his uniform – it was freshly laundered, although it still seemed worn and faded. He looked the same – clean, a little healthier, but still weary and oddly jaded.

"…You really shouldn't leave this soon," Winry said.

"…I'll stay close to the med tent, once I get back to camp," He said, and he tapped the stars and stripes on his shoulder, an unneeded reminder of his rank. "…They know I'm valuable – they won't send me anywhere too risky."

"…Aren't you going to be punished, though?"

"I doubt it. I can concoct a number of stories for them to believe." He replied. "…I don't have any kind of record – other than killing our nation's leader, of course-" He said, with a wry smirk, "—so there shouldn't be any real problem."

"…You're _sure_ you can make it all the way to their camp?"

"It's only a few miles east. I'll be careful." He pulled on his white glove, and she saw it – the array, sewn carefully into the back of his glove. Winry looked at it, and a sudden strange suspicion entered her mind.

"…General – I mean, Roy. Do you even need the array?" She asked.

The question took him by surprise, and he looked towards her. Winry said nothing and looked right back – she had been around alchemists, like Izumi and Ed, long enough to know that there was _some_ connection between those who attempted to transcend God's territory and survived and those who could simply _clap_ and do alchemy without a circle.

His assessing gaze softened. "…I could." He said. "…But I won't."

There were a few glaring differences between Roy Mustang and Edward Elric, and one of them was that Mustang hadn't believed that _alchemy_ was the way to solve his problems in a long, long time. She supposed that was for the best – if he really did believe in the wonders of alchemy, than he would be yet another Central Bureaucrat craving power and secretly desiring the Philosopher's Stone.

…Said Stone, of course, was now illegal to research, illegal to pursue, and illegal to attempt to produce. Red Water mining was outlawed in all areas, and any alchemist suspected of attempting anything in the field was offered an unappealing life sentence in jail. When the Fuhrer had fallen, and Parliament had taken over, Roy Mustang was among the many that had pushed and lobbied _endlessly_ for that law to be enacted.

Winry opened her mouth again to speak, but Mustang cut her off, as he began stuffing his meager supplies – painkillers, medication, and oil for his joints – carelessly into his knapsack.

"—Ed was the one who saved me. I guess he could tell what I was about to do – we're both sick people, after all, and I suppose our minds really do travel down the same paths. I-"

"…General. You don't have to-"

"It's Roy." He said, stiffly. "No. You _should_ know this." Mustang straightened up slowly – he was still in pain, and _should_ have been in bed, really – his movements were weak, and graceless. After seven pathetically short days of healing after the surgery he was still in pain.

_If might be a miracle if he makes it to the camp in one piece._

"…Ed wanted his brother back. I wanted her back. We both must have considered _something_ idiotic that night, like using one another in the transmutation – but we both turned back, and parted ways. He must have noticed that I headed off in the wrong direction… I still don't remember every detail," Mustang admitted, "…But you were right. I tried."

Winry frowned miserably. "I'm sorry…"

"For what?"

_For being right_, she thought, but she didn't say it. He ignored it, and continued.

"…Fullmetal really is a brilliant alchemist… He managed to interrupt the transmutation before I ended up getting sucked into it. I didn't make anything… There was no body, or homunculus… The gate just took my arm. I must have gained something from it… I don't know what."

Winry didn't address that particular point, but instead, she frowned. There were parts of his story that still didn't make sense. "…What happened after that? Where did Ed go? Ed wasn't hurt, was he?"

"…I don't know. He left after that." Mustang said – and on his face, there was a strange look, one that unsettled Winry. She did not recognize it, but it didn't last – he abruptly turned away. He almost swayed where he stood, and Winry had the sudden, almost _hysterical_ fear that something horrible was going to happen if he did leave now. She swallowed it – what did it matter? There was no changing it, and she didn't want to believe in _every_ silly little intuition she had. Instead, he turned towards her, his expression strange…

…She didn't quite meet his eyes.

"…Winry."

Surprised by his daring, that he had actually _said_ her first name, she looked up at him. He still looked half-dead on his feet, even in his uniform, and the sling around his arm only made him look more pathetic. They studied one another, Winry with a feeling of unease, and him expressionless.

Finally, he spoke. "…Sorry. I'm not Ed."

And, with a final nod – as if to say goodbye, despite it all – he turned and limped out the door and off her porch.

Stricken into silence, Winry watched him go.

_He thinks… Does he actually think…?_

_Oh God._

She wanted to run after him and _slap_ him, yell in his face, and inform him that he was _wrong_. She was _not_ using him as a replacement for Edward Elric… And how he could even think that …

But self-doubt and a kind of strange revulsion overcame her. All this time…

_Maybe I was waiting for Ed._

After all, as she watched his back recede into the distance, she kept on _thinking_ of Ed, of the many times she had seen _his_ back recede, and had studied the curve of his shoulders and the slight unevenness in his stride due to the automail… Winry didn't run after him, because she knew, by now, it was pointless.

_That strange look on his face when I asked about Ed… _

Winry felt a sudden surge of half-hearted hatred. Roy Mustang was selfish, a _bastard_, charming, selfless, ridiculous, petty, insecure, over-confident, idiotic, brilliant, and a moron all in one package, and it was never more clear than now. He _deserved_ to be whacked over the head with a wrench, and she hoped he ended up tripping half a dozen times on his way to the Eastern Military camp. Winry _almost_ screamed over him… Almost went sprinting along the lane as she had this morning…

But his slightly swaying form had already disappeared over the edge of the hill beyond Rockbell Automail.

**

* * *

**

"_You fucking idiot…" Edward Elric slapped him evenly across the face with automail, and Roy knew he deserved it. After trying something so stupid, and repulsive… He didn't reprimand the boy, or say anything, really. His head buzzed with an eerie static, and he kept on seeing _it _in his mind, the looming doors opening to claim him…_

…_Right before someone had came and _grabbed _him, yanking him back into reality before it swallowed him completely. Only his arm was gone. Now Edward Elric slapped him again, and began putting pressure to his injured side. _

"…_Fullmetal…" He murmured. _

"_You really are the biggest son-of-a-bitch in the world, Mustang," Ed hissed. "You are one stupid, stupid _fuck. _Why did you think…? Why in the _hell…?"

"…_No… You're right…" Even now, Ed looked at him, startled by the admission. Roy continued to shiver. "…Th…Tha…Thanks…"_

"_Just shut up," Ed groused, angrily. "Hold still…, this looks _horrible," _Ed swore. "…Your blood is all over… Damn it! I couldn't pull you back before you--"_

"_No. It's all right. I deserve this…" Roy murmured. He felt so _tired, _as if the entire world was crushing him. Now he understood a number of things he hadn't before. No, that wasn't true – he already knew that Lieutenant Hawkeye was dead, but one moment of cowardice, of utter foolishness…_

…_Yes. He deserved these wounds… Although, it was strange… He was beginning to forget, as the night grew foggy around him. He couldn't remember drawing the array, and he couldn't remember much of anything that had led up to this. All he knew was that, where there should have been a right arm, there was nothing. _

"…_Fullmetal… You should leave… If the army finds you… If anyone else sees you…"_

"_People already saw me." Ed snapped, angrily. _

"…_Just Havoc… But… If someone else does… They'll think…" Roy swallowed. He was weak and his head hurt – it was hard to speak. "They might think…"_

"_Everyone's going to think I did something to you, anyway," Ed grumbled. "I mean, they blamed Liore on me. Why not this too? Why the hell not?"_

"…_Fullmetal…"_

"_Just shut the hell up and listen, Colonel. I'm going to go look for Al," Ed said, as he continued to pressure the wound. "…Those two dumb asses are coming. Havoc and Breda." There was still something eerie and broken in Ed's eyes… He was looking for Al, and Roy didn't know why. "I want you to--"_

"—_What happened to Al?" Roy asked, weakly._

"…_That doesn't matter… Not to you, anyway. I'm leaving you here before they see me. I don't need those idiots wasting my time – not any more than _you_ already have – and I don't want to be forced back into service, either. You remember my automail mechanic? Winry? She's the best. Go get yourself an arm, move on, and forget this ever happened."_

"_I don't think… I'm going to…" Roy trailed off. "Fullmetal. Tell the others--"_

_Another stinging slap jarred him back to reality. "Shut up. You're not going to die. You're bleeding, but you won't die. Just do as I say."_

"…_You little brat," Roy spat out, voice slightly stronger than before, and Ed only smiled in a sickly fashion. _

"…_You're as pathetic as I am," He said, before rising to his feet. _

_His footsteps receded, but only minutes later, he heard Havoc swearing almost incoherently and Breda's heavy footsteps pounding in his direction. Roy closed his eyes. _

Rockbell Automail… I _couldn't_ go there… Doesn't Ed realize…?

_But then, Roy Mustang realized – as Havoc and Breda performed first aid – that he wanted to run, and hide, and not be seen… he wanted to be away from it all, and even if he had to be faced with his demons – the faces of those two doctors, who he had so brutally murdered – every time he looked at their daughter, it was better than having to endure this… The sense of loss and terror… The continual suffering of the battlefield…_

"_Sir… Let's get you back to camp," Havoc said, moving Roy, trying to get him up, back on his feet._

"…_No." Roy said, firmly. "I'm not going back…"_

_He heard their gasps, but everything seemed to be fading away… He was going into shock, probably, and now even Ed's face was beginning to blur in his mind… Along with everything else… _

_He wondered if the feeling of forgetting everything was the same feeling as being forgiven. _

_**

* * *

** _

It had been three months since she had last seen an alchemist… Since Roy Mustang had left in the cold of winter, the days had lengthened, the temperatures warmed, and the warm breezes had returned from the South. Winry had continued to work on automail, fulfilling shipments and sending them off to the military, and really wondering if anyone who received automail on the fronts really survived long, anyway. Sometimes she _even_ wondered if one particular alchemist had already broken his automail – perhaps from a rogue shell blast or perhaps from an enemy's alchemy – but such thoughts only lead her mind down a path she was pointedly trying to avoid. She didn't want to think about him. Instead, she thought about Ed and Al, and continually wondered if she was ever going to see them again.

Maybe it was pathetic, or sad, or weak… But Winry was content to wait for _them_ to come, and, in a more practical sense, far too busy to go out and look for them. She imagined the day when the Elrics returned – both full in body and in mind – and realized how unlikely it was. As far as she gathered, fate, god, or whatever the hell it was, had conspired to rip the two brothers apart continually for as long as they both lived.

She'd considered Roy's last words to her more than she would have wanted to admit, but that only made her wonder more. What _were_ her reasons, anyway, for having any kind of regard for him? Was it just because he reminded her of Ed?

…And when she looked in the mirror, and thought of the role she had played in his life, was it just because _she_ reminded him of Hawkeye?

…Were they just using one another?

Winry didn't want to think about it or know the truth. She really didn't want to ever see him again.

It was now a balmy afternoon in mid-February and she was going through the same old act.

Try to think of Ed, Al, and old friends like Sciezka, Maria Ross and Denny Broche, Panina, and others… But when _his_ face flashed through her mind, Winry tossed an automail hand across the room in a sudden outburst of pent up frustration. The hand wasn't going well, either – there was something slightly stiff in the pinky, and the circuits were rubbing together in a strange manner. All the problems with it were minor, not _really_ worthy of an outburst… And the automail didn't even _need_ adjusting in the first place, really…

…But she needed tiny things, little things, all to distract her from what she was thinking, from the continual _waiting_. That was the best.

She rose to her feet and padded over to the hand, bending over and picking it up. In the light, she studied it, and thought of _him _again.

_I probably never will see him again._ That was good. That was a reassuring thought.

As she moved back to the table and sat down, casting a glance at the clock – it was now five thirty – a knock on the door interrupted her steady stream of thoughts. A startle-reflex overcame her, before she relaxed – it wasn't like she had any contraband material in the house, or contraband _alchemists_ – and abandoned her work, and headed towards the door. When she wrenched it open, her heart damn near leapt into her throat.

He was wan, tired, and his face was thinner and longer than she remembered – but she recognized him immediately. Under a layer of dirt and grime, and with a strangely sad look in his burning gold eyes, was Edward Elric.

"Ed!" Winry couldn't contain herself. Lunging forth she threw her arms around his neck, and he, predictably, balked and started backpedaling, furiously.

"Winry!" He said, his voice slightly gruffer than before and still recognizable, still _Ed._ "…Take it easy… Jeez…" She could almost _sense_ him blushing beneath the grime. Winry drew back with a smile, and looked around expectantly.

"Where's Al?" A moment later, she knew that she could have answered the question herself. Ed's face, which had been cautiously optimistic before, was dark and foreboding now.

"…Al's not here." Ed said, softly. "Listen. I need an adjustment in my arm. Something's squeaking inside of it – and I can't close the fingers all the way. Would you mind taking a look at it?"

This was the Ed she had feared – an Ed without Al. And Al… Winry still _kept_ on looking for him, as if he was suddenly going to appear out of nowhere. She felt too numb to cry – and if she did, she somehow knew that Ed would only look away and pretend not to see it, probably while rolling his eyes. He was always like that…

…Another stubborn, arrogant alchemist, with a burden far too heavy for his own shoulders.

Blinking back wetness, Winry nodded. "Sure. We can do it right in here – I've got all my tools out."

Ed, without further adieu, tossed off his cloak and jacket, before throwing himself roughly along the ground and stretching his arm out. Winry knelt above him and began examining, searching for the root of the problem. They were silent for a long while… Before, finally, Ed spoke.

"Winry. Did the Colonel ever show up here?"

Winry felt a sudden rage, directed at _that_ man who was hopefully _hundreds_ of _miles_ away, but she swallowed it, careful to keep her voice even. "He did."

Ed said nothing more. For a while, she adjusted some of the screws along the outer exterior of Ed's automail – sure enough it was in _absolute_ disrepair, as if it hadn't been maintained for years. Winry continued to adjust, as Ed let out a low sigh.

"Ed… Where were you?" Winry finally asked, her voice low. "And where is Al?"

"…You wouldn't believe me even if I told you." Ed murmured, quietly.

"But what about Al?" This must have been painful for him, but Ed was used to it. Winry watched his expression change, as she readjusted the wiring inside one automail finger, before, finally, Ed spoke.

"…He brought me back to Amestris."

"…He did? How did he--"

"—But he's not here any more."

Winry fell deathly silent.

There was no more conversation between them. Winry knew that Ed was going to try to get Al _back_ from wherever he had gone, and she was going to let him. There was nothing else worth saying, anyway – he wasn't going to tell her where he had been and where he was going, and Winry understood. That was Edward Elric. Alchemists were strange, secretive people, after all.

_Al…_

He, for once, did not comment, but he must have noticed her tears.

It was strange. This wasn't what she had expected at all – for Edward Elric to return, and for everything to make _sense_ again. Instead, she felt more bewildered than ever, especially when he abruptly rose to his feet after she finished and pulled his cloak and jacket back on. Without further adieu, Ed started towards the door.

"Ed!" Winry called.

He paused, and turned back. His expression was serious, but there was something grateful in it, too. "Thanks, Winry." He didn't blush this time.

"Wh… Where are you going?"

"…I'm going to Al." He said, quietly. "…When I find him, we'll both come back. But don't wait for me, Winry. I'm sorry. It'll be a while."

And Winry smiled. "I understand."

As she watched Edward Elric recede into the distance, his form growing smaller and smaller, Winry knew suddenly and acutely that she was _still_ going to be here in Risembool, making automail and sending it to the fronts, and all the while, she was going to wait.

_I looked at him and saw Ed sometimes. He looked at me and saw Riza Hawkeye a few times, too. Maybe we were both just using one another? Maybe that's what he thought, and I must have thought that at some point, too._

They were both wrong. She knew that, and he would figure it out, eventually.

Winry considered it, and smiled bitterly as Ed disappeared over the horizon.

_All this time. The last three months._

_I was waiting for Roy._

She would wish for another storm.


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Months passed, and days went by where Winry didn't even _think_ about alchemy, or Mustang, or Ed, or Al, or any of them. She bought a new puppy in the spring time, one that resembled Den – only with paws _twice_ as big and an attitude doubly as rambunctious, an ominous sign of things yet to come. The few farm cats roving around the place disappeared with the arrival of the new Dog.

She still hadn't chosen a real name for the animal. Something hopelessly cliché – like Rover or Biscuit or Snowball – seemed fitting, but for now, Winry was content with calling him 'Den II' and chasing after him whenever he soiled the carpet in the living room. Sometimes he stretched out along that stupid _couch,_ the one she should have burned, and Winry found herself compulsively shooing him away. She felt like an old housewife, even if it was just her and the dog.

The morning paper arrived just before 5:30am every week day, and she always let the dog out and watched him putter around the yard while flipping through and skimming the headlines. Usually there was nothing of interest – there were a few clippings here and there, about her house, though, which mentioned the "hero of the East War", the Flame Alchemist, who had spent a month in an enemy concentration camp only to escape and return to the fronts – missing an arm and weak, but bravely continuing to fight even despite having "lost so much" that was dear to him. Winry only frowned when she read those stories.

Two weeks ago, the papers had proclaimed victory. After three long years of fighting, the Eastern War was over. Peace treaties were currently being drawn up in parliament, and Amestris was going to emerge the clear winner in all fields. Winry did not care – the State was still The State, and even the new parliament hadn't yet earned her trust. At least, they were no longer homunculi searching for the Philosopher's Stone.

After that one mention, Edward Elric's name had never been in the paper again. Al's wasn't there, either, and Winry wasn't surprised.

Today, the paper mentioned something about a dog-training class being offered in East City, and Winry raised her head, glaring at the Pup as he started roaming towards the blossoming summer vegetable garden just beyond the front porch. Oblivious, the dumb dog began digging, and Winry only shook her head before glancing – as she did every morning – towards the Eastern Road.

Sure enough, no one. Winry went and gathered the up Den II, now covered in dirt – for some reason, she was thinking of changing his name to 'Roy'. He was a dirty, messy dog that destroyed her furniture and distracted her a good twenty hours each day from attending to whatever duties she had – usually automail maintenance for patients, who came to the clinic more often now that the war had ended and the transportation infrastructure of Amestris was up and running once more…

Winry fed her dog and left him in the kitchen, listening to him snuffle and snort through a can of puppy food, before returning to her automail works. Outside, the weather was sunny and clear, and inside the house, it was warm. The day passed by uneventfully – Den II – or Roy, as she more and more convincingly thought of him as – contented himself with chewing on the legs of her chair while she made some final adjustments on a prosthetic foot for one of the local customers. Around sunset, when a powerful spring thunderstorm swept over Risembool and lightning flickered through the windows, Winry heard someone knock rather loudly at the door. Probably another customer, she surmised, but wouldn't it be just _humorous_ if it were another desperate, pathetic alchemist? The kind she invariably fell in love with but couldn't help but _resent_ all at once? She opened the door with a smile that melted into a glare.

"…You _idiot_."

Roy Mustang looked strained and tired, but several missing fingers on his automail right hand were more noticeable. He smiled wanly at her.

"I need a few adjustments."

"What did you _do_? You weren't slinging it all over the place and _trying_ to put dents in it, where you?"

There was a bandage around his forehead, another around his neck, and a few more visible on his collarbone, underneath the clean white shirt he wore. For once he was not in uniform – he only wore a pair of black slacks and a black jacket, and the saggy fit suggested that he was greatly diminished underneath the clothes.

Mustang looked at her, but his face – as hard and unreadable as it sometimes was – softened. He shrugged. "…One of the convoy trucks I was in crashed. It was right after they signed the peace treaty."

"Okay, whatever. Come in, sit down on the couch."

"Right." Mustang said, and he wearily trudged inwards, limping heavily on one of his legs and finally slouching down to sit upon the couch cushions. He looked exhausted – like the last few months of the war had drained whatever little amount of life in him there was left. Winry noticed that he _could_ move his automail arm – and often did – but most of the time he left it to hang limply at his side, more for looks than it was for practicality. Likely, he hadn't yet learned how to operate it correctly.

After all, it had only been five _excruciatingly_ long months.

She washed her hands in the sink and moved to her table, dumping out his little sack of automail screws and the plates that had gone over the fingers with a scowl. Mustang watched.

"…Did Ed ever come back?" He asked.

"…He did. But he left again."

"…To look for Al?"

"…Yeah." Winry murmured, quietly, and pointedly avoided looking at him.

He must have understood. He always did.

She left the broken parts for a moment and went to join him, sitting on the couch and grabbing his automail arm, carefully examining the surface. Unlike Ed, he seemed to have kept it well-polished, and other than the obvious damage it seemed as if there were few dents or scratches in the smooth metal. She assumed Roy Mustang's natural sense of vanity must have played some part in it, because his automail was _really_ in better shape than the rest of him. She examined the bandaged areas on his neck, and lightly pushed his hair aside, studying the wrapping around his forehead. He watched her the entire time with a single dark eye, before misreading her concern as _something_ else and lightly putting his good arm around her shoulders, drawing her forth. Winry let out a sigh.

_He is so stupid._

Her head went to rest at his shoulder, and her hands acted on their own – gripping the fabric of his clothing and holding onto him in a possessive way, as he relaxed into her. He was weak – probably leaning into her for more support than he would have cared to admit – but he was _still_ warm, just like she so vividly remembered. She closed her eyes tightly.

Roy Mustang should have been nothing but a reminder of her demons, and she knew she should have reminded him of his, but this time, and like before, his warmth surrounded her and she was simply able to push everything from her mind. There was no pain; they lingered in quiet understanding, and Winry knew that this moment was going to last.

**End**

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**a/n:** THANKS FOR READING!


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